Every family law attorney has met parents who simply do not seem to get along. One parent says yes, the other automatically says no. Mom says the sky is blue, while dad says mom is just plain wrong.
I strongly encourage parents who have a toxic relationship to attend high conflict diversion classes. One such class is taught by Shaun Hoyle, who has undergone collaborative training and is the owner of Life Lessons of Manasota, Inc.
The Tampa Tribune is reporting that Pope Francis has reformed the process by which many Catholics receive annulments from the church. The reforms take a process that oftentimes took well over and year and, in many cases, shortens that length down to 45 days.
One of the reforms does a way for the need of an exhaustive investigation when both spouses request the annulment (or neither actively opposes it).
If you have minor children and are going through a divorce or paternity matter in Florida, then someone is likely going to have to pay child support to the other parent. Child support by default is paid through the Central Governmental Depository and State Disbursement Unit, which is a system for the courts to ensure that child support is being paid.
Usually, a judge will sign an Income Withholding Order that is sent to the payor’s employer. The employer will automatically deduct the child support from the payor’s paycheck, and then send the payment to the State Disbursement Unit (“SDU”). The SDU makes a record of the payment, and then sends the child support payment via debit card to the payee.
But, if you are receiving child support in Florida, you can choose to get it via direct deposit.
A fact of Florida family law is that if children are involved, there almost certainly will be child support. Even in cases where parents have a 50/50 time-sharing schedule, child support is oftentimes warranted.
Florida Statutes section 61.30 sets out a formula to calculate child support that takes into account the incomes of each party, the amount of time the child spends with each parent, health insurance costs, and other costs.
And Family Law Software as created an iPhone and Android App which can give you an idea of how much child support you should expect to pay or receive.
Divorce is difficult, but not all divorces are created equally. Here in Tampa Bay and Greater Sarasota, more and more people are choosing to resolve their family law issues via the collaborative process. Collaborative divorce is a method of dispute resolution where the spouses agree from the beginning that they are each going to retain attorneys who will work as settlement specialists and who will not engage in court battles.
Collaborative divorce has one simple requirement: The spouses must each retain attorneys who focus solely on helping them reach an agreement on all issues. The collaborative attorneys are private problem-solving specialists, and they cannot be used in contested court hearings. This requirement creates a safe, non-adversarial environment so that each spouse knows that the other spouse’s attorney is not attempting to gather information to use against him or her later in court. It also ensures that resources are directed towards helping the clients reach an agreement rather than wasted in opposition research or dirty trial tactics.
There are many different models of collaborative divorce that are used throughout the world. The model that is most frequently used here in Florida involves one neutral facilitator, who generally has a mental health background, and one neutral financial professional. This model was created in Texas by, among others, Linda Solomon, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
You can learn more about Linda Solomon and the beginning of this model in the video below from Cutting Edge Law:
In 1969, a Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, published a book in which she described the five stages of grief experienced by terminally-ill patients. This work was later expanded to help explain the emotions of people who have lost a loved one and others experiencing personal loss, such as spouses going through divorce.
Divorce is a trauma, and anyone going through this trauma may be helped by speaking with a counselor or therapist. Additionally, you should consider whether the collaborative family law process may be helpful to your family, as it is a private form of dispute resolution that generally involves a neutral facilitator, who usually has a mental health background. This is in recognition that divorce is not just a legal matter, but also a highly emotional matter.
Regardless, below are the five stages of grief you may experience if you are going through divorce:
Cynthia Schwarzkopf, daughter of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr, discusses how she and her husband utilized the collaborative family law process to dissolve her marriage in a video released by the Tampa Bay Collaborative Divorce Group.
You can see the video below the jump:
In June 2014, United Kingdom researchers Anne Barlow, Rosemary Hunter, Janet Smithson, and Jan Ewing published a research paper titled Mapping Paths to Family Justice. The paper was based on research sponsored by the University of Exeter, the University of Kent, and the Economic & Research Council and which compared various forms of private dispute resolution for divorce, including collaborative practice.
As collaborative divorce is relatively new in England and Wales, there were comparatively few respondents for the research, so it may not be representative of all collaborative cases. Nonetheless, it may be helpful for Florida families and collaborative practitioners to review the results.
The study reviews three types of private forms of family dispute resolution. One type, solicitor negotiation, isn’t exactly utilized in Florida as we do not have do not have a distinction between solicitors and barristers, we just have attorneys. Either way, below are the definitions used for each process that was analyzed:
Below are some of the main findings and recommendations on divorces that used the collaborative law process:
When most people think of divorce, they think of a courthouse battle. Florida’s court system pits husband versus wife, mother versus father, and what ensues is many times not too different from divorces depicted in War of the Roses or Kramer vs. Kramer.
But collaborative divorce is something different altogether.
