ILLINOIS DIVORCE LAW BLOG

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The following is a hypothetical example, but a very real description of a family dealing with legal issues in a recession:

When Patrick and his wife divorced, they agreed to sell their home. Yet, once a buyer gets close to making an offer, his wife backs off, believing she can buy him out of the house with housing prices (and the equity buy out price) dropping each month.

To complicate matters, Patrick, not his real name, recently lost his job. He is going to go back to court and ask that his child support be reduced. According to legal experts from around the country, Patrick’s tale isn’t unusual. The recession that’s affected every other aspect of America is now affecting family court as well. Clients are returning to court as a way to deal with financial hardships that are affecting their support obligations and property settlement agreements.

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Just as fuel efficient cars become more popular during a period of high fuel prices, cost effective legal representation in divorce cases becomes a welcome path for people looking to end their marriages. The Law Offices of Michael F. Roe has consistently advocated cooperative, mediated, and collaborative divorce as a lower cost, efficient, and low stress means of helping divorcing parties complete their divorce in a financially healthy way, even in a deep recession.

The deepening recession, increased unemployment, and a stalled housing market have negatively impacted most parties’ financial situations. Many divorcing couples’ homes are “under water” because of declining values and high mortgages. Other divorcing couples who are fortunate enough to have equity in their most significant marital asset, their home, cannot sell their house due to the slow real estate market. Combine that with the plummeting values of retirement accounts, and we are looking at marital asset balance sheets that are nothing less than bleak.

Although, historically, divorce rates tend to rise during a bad economy, divorce attorneys nationwide have noticed a change in the legal landscape. Some experts attribute the decline in divorce filings to the severity of the economic downturn. Typically, a recession results in decreased divorce rates for couples with limited financial resources. The prospect of incurring expenses for two households seems overwhelming for those with limited resources. On the other hand, high net-worth clients may seek to take advantage of the diminished value of their homes, stock and investment portfolios, and businesses to decrease their overall financial liability to their soon-to-be ex-spouse.
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There are at least five (5) states that have passed legislation regarding virtual visitation, or internet visitation: Utah, Wisconsin, Texas, Missouri and Florida. Other states are sure to follow, and through my firm’s nonprofit Fathers4Justice.net Illinois, I’m working to develop a legislative bill to propose making Virtual Visitation part of the IMDMA. Michael Gough, a pioneer virtual visitation technologist, has developed a program that we discussed in Chicago some years ago. See http://www.internetvisitation.org/

Internet visitation is being implemented, primarily for the purpose of allowing a parent more access to his or her child while the child is not in their care; it is not meant to replace one-on-one visitation. Think of it as a supplement to in person time with your child(ren).

Virtual visitation allows for the parent and child to communicate on a more regular basis, allowing for the parent and child to see and hear one another, which can be more effective than the standard telephone call. It seems that those adverse to virtual visitation are most concerned with parents using it as a means to replace typical in person visitation, which it is not meant to do.

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Co-Parenting defined:

Co-parenting enables children to reap the benefits of being raised by both parents in the event of a divorce. The archaic belief that primary custody should always be awarded to the mother is in most jurisdictions not followed. Today, it is widely acknowledged that many good fathers are just as qualified to raise children as good mothers. Therefore, to benefit the children and save the divorcing couple thousands of dollars in litigation fees, thoughtful divorce lawyers encourage their clients to settle custody issues by agreeing to joint legal and physical custody: co-parenting.

Frequently, co-parenting plans will divide the time children spend with each parent relatively equally, providing each parent an opportunity to raise their children and enjoy spending large amounts of time with them as they grow up.

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The Law Offices of Michael F. Roe is pleased to provide the new logo for Michael Roe’s association dedicated to advocating for a shared parenting statute in Illinois:
Fathers4JustiD64aR00aP01ZL.jpg

Psychologists familiar with child custody issues generally agree that children, and the parents, do much better long term after divorce when the parents and kids share a balanced parenting plan. This preference among clinicians assumes that both parents are fit and proper parents to have the joint and shared custody of the children.

Illinois is still a “winner-loser” state in child custody matters. Fathers, many times, lose out on a healthy parenting plan, post-divorce. Some of our neighboring states, Iowa for example, have embraced a statutory (legal) preference for shared parenting in divorce. Establishing shared parenting as a legal preference would go a long way, I believe, toward taking the competition and bitterness out of divorce cases with custody issues.

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Marriages end, and do so nearly half the time. But when spouses are also parents together, the connection doesn’t end when the divorce papers are filed. There will still be graduations, marriages and a whole array of life-changing moments to share. And beyond the big events, there are the ordinary rituals: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, the first day of school, Thanksgiving-all times when good parental cooperation and planning can help kids thrive post-divorce. “You have to take the kid’s perspective, not your own,” advises Robert E. Emery, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Children, Families and the Law at the University of Virginia. Suppressing your natural emotional response can be a real challenge, acknowledges Emery. “In order to make it work, you have to end your relationship in a way that’s emotionally unnatural. At the end of a romantic relationship, you’d normally say, ‘I never want to see you again,’ but when there are children, you have to contain that impulse. You have to put your emotions aside.”

He offers these basic tips for divorced parents on how to make the holidays less stressful for everyone. (There’s more on how to collaborate with an ex-spouse, and why it’s so important, in Emery’s book “The Truth about Children and Divorce” (Viking/Penguin, 2004).

1. Remember that the holidays are not all about you.
Your children deserve their celebrations even if you feel cheated out of yours. Encourage them to have a blast with their other parent, even if you can’t stand the prospect of being alone.
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The State Of Iowa has on its books a Shared Parenting statute. which establishes shared parenting as the presumptively preferred means of custody in Iowa.

Here in Illinois, litigants often times fight custody “wars” over which parent will “win” the custody of the child(ren). As a lawyer and aggressive advocate for my clients, I enjoy a strongly contested case, but the fight over the custody of children is a battle that often should not be fought. Divorce creates enormous personal stresses in families, and the impact of divorce on children is well known. Having parents fight wars for the time with the children seems to me unhealthy, unnecessarily painful, and uselessly costly to families.

There are cases where joint physical custody is not appropriate. The Courts are well prepared to determine these cases. However, it would be a welcome event to see Illinois evolve out of the custody “dark ages,” into a more enlightened view toward statutory shared parenting. This would take the fight out of the parenting part of the case.

Below is a proposed Federal statute for shared parenting, from an Iowa shared parenting advocacy group:

Title of Bill:
An Act Relating to Physical Care of Children in Domestic Relations
Be It Enacted By The United States Congress
1 Preamble: An Act relating to joint physical care of children in domestic relations and
2 establishing a uniform federal law creating a rebuttable presumption that a request for joint 3 physical care is in the best interest of the child.
4 5 SECTION 1: This act may be cited as, “Shared Parenting bill.”
6
7 SECTION 2: In any domestic relations proceeding, the states shall award joint physical 8 care to both joint custodial parents upon the request of either parent during the proceedings 9 on the initial dissolution petition or during the proceedings on a modification of the original 10 custody order.
11 12 SECTION 3: A rebuttable presumption exists that a request for joint physical care by either 13 parent is in the best interest of the child, the burden of proof to rebut the presumption rests 14 on the party denying that joint physical care is in the best interest of the child, and such 15 party shall demonstrate that joint physical care is not in the best interest of the child by clear 16 and convincing evidence.
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Selecting the lawyer that will represent you is one of the most important decisions that you will make in your divorce case. You should try to find a lawyer who is skilled, competent, and who only handles family law and divorce cases. Seek someone who is responsive and willing to communicate with you throughout the divorce process. Ask for recommendations from your friends and family members, but in the end, trust your own judgment.

Schedule a consultation appointment with the lawyer. This will give you an opportunity to evaluate how you are treated by the staff and will give you some time to interact with and interview the lawyer. After spending thirty minutes to one hour with the lawyer, you should have a good feel for whether he or she is the right lawyer for you. One factor that is often overlooked is whether a lawyer’s personality compliments yours. You divorce lawyer is someone with whom you will be sharing many intimate details of your life as well confidential financial information. He or she must be someone with whom you are comfortable and whom you trust.

During the initial consultation with the potential lawyer, you may consider asking him the following 9 questions:

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Madonna and Guy Ritchie could be the first high-profile couple to divorce collaborative-style.

The new, fast-track and non-confrontational way of reaching arrangements over money and children on divorce has just won senior judicial backing – in the week that the couple’s split became public knowledge.

Collaborative law does not sound buzzy. But it is the in-method of reaching divorce agreements, with the benefits of speed, huge cost savings and, above all, minimum acrimony.

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In mediation, there is one trained ‘neutral’ who helps the disputing parties try to settle their case. The mediator cannot give either party legal advice, and cannot help either side advocate its position. Mediation is a facilitative process, and it works best when the parties have a strong desire to find middle ground solutions, and do not have strong disputed issues.

Collaborative Law was designed to deal more effectively with conflicts in divorce, while maintaining the same absolute commitment to settlement as the sole agenda. Each side has quality legal advice and advocacy built in at all times during the process. Even if one side or the other lacks negotiating skill or financial understanding, or is emotionally upset or angry, the playing field is leveled by the presence of the parties’ own attorneys dedicated to the collaborative process. It is the job of the lawyers to work with their own clients if the clients are being unreasonable, to make sure that the process stays positive and productive, and on course to settlement.

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