Posted on April 28, 2022 in Child Custody

There is a mass incarceration crisis in America. Our country has a higher percentage of people in jail or prison than any other country in the world. Fully one out of five incarcerated individuals in the world is in an American correctional facility. Many of these inmates are parents. Having legal problems does not make someone a bad or harmful parent. Often, it remains in the best interests of the child to have the incarcerated parent be part of their life as much as possible. However, there is a limit to how much parenting time one can have while they are locked up. In Illinois, courts are beginning to recognize the value of helping children maintain a relationship with an incarcerated parent during child custody cases. A lawyer can help you understand how incarceration could affect your custody case.

What You Need to Know About the Impact of Incarceration on Child Custody

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 Posted on April 20, 2022 in Family Law

Being a single parent can be extremely difficult. Your child’s needs do not decrease just because they only have one parent to care for them and provide for them. In Illinois, children have the right to be supported financially by both of their parents. This typically takes the form of child support payments. One problem that many single mothers face is that the father of their child refuses to acknowledge that he is indeed the child’s other parent. This can create a roadblock, but with the help of a skilled attorney, it is often a very surmountable roadblock.

Even if the father refuses to acknowledge paternity voluntarily, Illinois state law provides a mechanism for establishing paternity involuntarily. If you are faced with this difficult situation, you should strongly consider speaking to an attorney about your options.

How Can Paternity be Established if My Child’s Father Will Not Cooperate?

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 Posted on April 13, 2022 in Child Custody

Illinois law presumes that both a child’s parents are safe and capable of caring for their children. However, there are situations in which a parent’s rights may be limited or even eliminated. If there are concerns about a child’s safety with a parent, the court has the authority to impose certain restrictions on parenting time. If you are an unmarried or divorced parent, it is important to understand how and when parenting time restrictions are implemented.

Illinois Courts Impose Parenting Time Restrictions on a Case-by-Case Basis

Illinois law describes parenting duties in terms of “parental responsibilities,” meaning decision-making authority and “parenting time,” which used to be called visitation. The court assumes that it is best for a child to spend time with both of his or her parents unless there is ample evidence to the contrary. Consequently, the burden of proof is on the party requesting a parenting time restriction.

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 Posted on April 05, 2022 in Domestic Violence

Domestic violence can happen to anyone. Domestic abuse reflects negatively only on the abuser, never the victim. You might feel trapped in your marriage or relationship because you share children with the abuser, or you are married to them, or even because they have taken steps to unlawfully restrict your liberty. Others feel they have to stay because they are financially dependent on the abuser. Whatever is keeping you trapped in your dangerous relationship, there is a way out. If you are one of the millions of people who will experience violence at home this year, there are steps a lawyer can take to help you get out safely. Whether you need a divorce or are concerned about the safety of your children, there are likely ways that a family law attorney can help.

How Does Illinois Family Law Protect Family Violence Victims?

When you are ready to safely exit your abusive relationship, here are some protections that may be available to you:

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 Posted on March 29, 2022 in Divorce

There are a variety of financial issues that will need to be addressed during a divorce, including determining how to divide the property a couple owns between the two spouses. However, during the property division process, a couple will also need to consider the debts they owe. Just like the assets a couple owns, the amounts that are owed to creditors will need to be allocated between the spouses. However, it is important to understand how different types of debts may be handled, as well as the factors that may complicate things during or after a divorce.

Division of Secured and Unsecured Debts

It is important to remember that assets and debts do not need to be divided exactly equally. Illinois law requires a “fair and equitable” distribution of marital property. Depending on the decisions made about certain types of assets, each spouse’s overall financial situation, and other factors, the final decisions on how to divide debts may vary. While they work to reach agreements on these issues, a couple will need to consider how different types of debts may be handled.

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 Posted on March 28, 2022 in Divorce

Many people are familiar with a prenuptial agreement as a way for couples entering marriage to keep certain assets separate. A postnuptial agreement is less well known, but if a married couple did not sign a prenuptial agreement, a postnuptial agreement could be an option to protect significant premarital wealth or business venture, or to protect one spouse from the other’s debt. It can be created at any time after the start of the marriage, in both good times and in bad. A postnuptial agreement should be something you mutually agree on. Like a prenuptial agreement, it is best to work with an attorney before signing any postnuptial agreement.

What Is Protected in an Illinois Postnuptial Agreement?

Postnuptial agreements can define each spouse’s financial rights and responsibilties, including property ownership, financial responsibilities, spousal maintenance obligations, and life insurance considerations. A postnuptial agreement may be useful if one spouse begins a new business venture during marriage and wants to insulate the other from any business debt incurred or doesn’t want to put the couple’s marital assets at risk if the business were to fail. It can also be used by couples who are not ready to divorce but want to safeguard certain assets; usually ones they individually brought into the marriage.

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 Posted on March 24, 2022 in Divorce

Getting a divorce can lead to significant financial difficulties for both parties. In addition to addressing the costs of the divorce process itself, each spouse will need to make adjustments as they shift away from combining their incomes and expenses and establish new living arrangements where they will each use their separate incomes to cover their ongoing costs. In some cases, spousal support (which is known as spousal maintenance in Illinois) may be needed to ensure that a spouse will be able to support themselves. While this form of support is not a factor in every divorce, it may be appropriate in situations where one spouse earns a much higher income or when a person is a stay-at-home parent.

While spousal support may be awarded based on the parties’ circumstances at the time of their divorce, these circumstances may change in the future. When a person experiences changes in their life that may affect spousal maintenance payments, they will need to understand the steps that they can take to request a modification of the court’s orders.

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 Posted on March 09, 2022 in Child Custody

When addressing issues related to child custody, parents will need to consider multiple different factors. While matters related to children will be a key consideration for parents who are going through a divorce, unmarried couples may also need to determine how they will handle child-related issues in the event of a breakup or any other situation where a child’s parents are not living together as partners. Decisions involving child custody will be set down in a legally-binding document known as a parenting plan or parenting agreement. While much of the focus of a parenting plan will be on how parents will divide parental responsibilities (legal custody) and parenting time (physical custody or visitation), the agreement may also address a variety of other related issues. One important issue that parents may want to include in their parenting plan is the right of first refusal.

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 Posted on February 28, 2022 in Child Custody

Issues related to children can be difficult to resolve in family law cases, including situations where married couples choose to get a divorce or where unmarried parents will be ending their relationship. Child custody cases will typically address two separate issues. While the allocation of parental responsibilities (sometimes referred to as “legal custody”) covers parents’ rights to make decisions about how their children will be raised, parenting time (also known as “physical custody”) will address where children will live and whether they will spend most of their time with one parent while having visitation time with the other parent. When creating a parenting plan or joint parenting agreement, parents will need to make sure to consider a number of issues that will help them avoid confusion, protect their parental rights, and provide for their children’s best interests.

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 Posted on February 22, 2022 in Divorce

Getting a divorce will involve a variety of complex financial issues. During the property division process, a couple will need to evaluate all of their assets and debts and determine how they will be allocated between the spouses. While the physical items a couple owns will be a big part of this process, ownership of financial assets will also need to be addressed. In recent years, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have become an issue that is more and more common in divorce cases, and spouses who own these types of assets will need to understand the role that they may play as they divide their marital property.

Cryptocurrency and Hidden Assets

While married couples are required to fully disclose all of the assets they own during the divorce process, there are many cases where spouses attempt to hide certain assets so that they will not have to share them. Cryptocurrency is becoming an increasingly common method of hiding assets. Transactions involving virtual currencies can be difficult to track since they are completed using private online accounts. Because of this, a person may attempt to convert money or other assets into cryptocurrency and transfer ownership of these assets to other parties or to foreign accounts in hopes that their spouse will not be aware of what they are doing.

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