Posted on April 21, 2021 in Child Custody

Illinois law does not consider someone an adult until they turn 18 years of age. It treats anyone under that age as a minor and requires an adult to take responsibility for their affairs, including where they live, what school they attend and what medical care they receive.

Usually, this is the child's parents. Yet, sometimes another person takes this role through guardianship.

What is custody of a minor?

When you have a child, as parents, you naturally have custody. You are legally responsible for your child until they reach adulthood. If you do not live together as a couple or later split up, a court needs to determine custody.

There are two types of custody: Legal and physical. Legal custody means who has the legal authority to make decisions on behalf of the child. Usually, both parents would share this. Physical custody refers to who the child spends time with, and there are several ways to arrange this.

What is guardianship of a child?

Guardianship is when someone else takes the place of parents incapable of looking after their child. That could be because both parents die or when one parent dies and the other cannot provide the child with a safe environment due to addiction, domestic violence, incarceration or mental health issues.

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 Posted on April 16, 2021 in Child Custody

Illinois family law judges have one primary obligation in child custody cases. Their most important responsibility is to make decisions that they believe are in children’s best interests.

As a parent, your arrest on domestic violence charges is enough to potentially put your custodial rights in jeopardy. A conviction for such a crime may be the proverbial nail in the coffin. A family court judge will likely weigh various factors when deciding what impact your impending or adjudicated charges have on your custody case.

The expectation is that a judge will presume a defendant as innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Judges tend to err on the side of caution when awarding custody, though.

What factors will a family court judge weigh?

Accusations of domestic violence may prompt the family law judge presiding over your case to replace your custodial rights with visitation rights. They'll likely weigh various factors before doing so, including:

• Whether there's documentable proof of the allegations such as police reports, hospital records and photographs

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 Posted on April 14, 2021 in Divorce

Being in your 70s, you know that you have lived a long life, but you have no intention of slowing down. You’re still active in your community, enjoy traveling and generally enjoy getting out of your comfort zone.

Throughout the years, your spouse has been a strong support of all your goals and aspirations, but now they’re trying to settle down. Even though you’re still in good health, they have seen theirs falter, and they are not able to keep up with the activities you love.

Unfortunately, this has bred resentment, and both of you are now looking into a divorce. At 70, though, is that really a good idea?

Divorce over 50 is increasing, though the issues are complex

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 Posted on April 07, 2021 in Divorce

If you are about to divorce, you need to decide what to do with your home. Who gets the family home can become one of the significant points of contention.

Your financial situation may mean you have to sell a home you want to keep

What if you want to keep your home? You might have spent years making improvements and tending to your garden. You could be great friends with the others in your street. Buying your spouse out may be an option if you have the funds. Or you may be able to trade it against other assets when dividing your property. If you cannot afford to keep the property, selling it may be the only option.

Market prices may influence your decision to sell

Now might not be the right time to sell your property if prices have dropped. It may make financial sense to wait, but it could complicate matters.

Delaying selling keeps you tied to your spouse

A clean break is often best thing for both parties when divorcing. If you continue to own a house together, then you still need to deal with each other.

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 Posted on April 01, 2021 in Child Custody

When couples break up or divorce, it is generally not on good terms. When minor children are added into the mix, that can bring out even more raw emotions and conflicts. Some parents may be so vengeful that they engage in parental alienation tactics.

You should know that parental alienation isn't looked upon very fondly by the court, no matter your reasoning. Acts of parental alienation can even result in a family law judge depriving you of custody.

What is parental alienation?

Parental alienation is any instance in which one parent purposely attempts to turn their child against their other parent. It's not uncommon for one parent to constantly tell their child negative information about the other parent to put emotional distance between the two of them. A mom or dad may also falsely accuse their co-parent of child abuse or domestic violence to alienate their child from their other parent.

Extended family members, including grandparents, aunts and uncles, may all become the target of the alienation campaign as well.

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 Posted on March 24, 2021 in Divorce

When you first file for divorce, you may not realize that you can file either for an uncontested divorce or a contested one.

An uncontested divorce is simply one in which both parties are able to agree to end their marriage and there are no outstanding issues that need to be resolved by the court. A contested divorce is one that has to be litigated, often due to issues over things like spousal maintenance or child custody.

When an uncontested divorce may be an ideal option

Many divorcing couples are eager to see their marriage dissolved from the moment that they decide that they can no longer remain in the relationship. Many spouses opt for an uncontested divorce whenever possible as those are generally quickly resolved.

The costs associated with pursuing an uncontested divorce also tend to be less as there's minimal need for court intervention or lots of intervention by an attorney.

An uncontested divorce can also preserve your privacy. Much of what happens in a courtroom in a contested divorce becomes part of the public record. Most negotiations in an uncontested divorce occur between attorneys behind closed doors and thus never makes the light of day.

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 Posted on March 10, 2021 in Child Custody

If you are going through a divorce and are also struggling with a mental health diagnosis, you may be concerned that your diagnosis could be used against you to interfere with your right to parent your child.

This fear is, unfortunately, rooted in reality. The rates for loss of custody of their children for parents with mental illnesses are in the range of 70-80%. In fact, two-thirds of children of parents with serious mental illnesses are reared by someone other than that parent.

How custody can play out in court when mental illness is involved

If your spouse decides to use your mental illness diagnosis to attempt to strip you of custody of your child, here are a few things to realize:

• Not all diagnoses are equal. A schizophrenic parent who is non-compliant with their prescribed medications and who experiences hallucinations could be a threat to their children’s health and well-being. This is a much different scenario from a parent struggling to manage their anxiety or who is suffering from mild or situational depression.

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 Posted on March 07, 2021 in Child Custody

Custody orders usually include broad terminology so that they remain appropriate and effective even when personal circumstances change. You and your spouse or the courts probably tried to create a custody order with terms that would still work for your family even when your children got older.

Sometimes parenting plans don't adequately reflect the needs of a family's situation after some time. If any of the following three scenarios apply to your family, it might be time for you to consider asking for a custody modification to update your parenting plan.

Your ex doesn't abide by the terms of the custody order

If your ex has stopped coming to pick up the children or often cancels their parenting time at the last minute, you are the one scrambling to change your plans to accommodate them. If one parent has made it clear that they don't intend to follow the terms set in the custody order, the courts might approve a modification with terms that more closely reflect the current division of parenting time.

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 Posted on February 21, 2021 in Divorce

People going through a divorce are often angry and hurting. Those intense emotions can produce irrational and cruel behavior in people who are usually kind and reasonable adults.

One of the many ways that people can try to twist divorce proceedings to hurt their spouse involves financial manipulation. People lash out at their soon-to-be ex by trying to deprive them of their fair share of marital resources during the divorce.

You need to be on the lookout for three of the most common ways that people play financial tricks on their spouse in divorce proceedings.

Watch for signs of undeclared or hidden assets

You will want to look over financial reports and the inventory provided by your spouse carefully. If there is income unaccounted for or if you notice obvious omissions, like their classic car collection, from the property inventory, that could be a sign that you need to dig deeper.

Hidden assets unfairly alter the outcome of property division by limiting the pool of property that the courts no they can divide.

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 Posted on February 17, 2021 in Divorce

At least 50% of Americans who marry end up getting divorced. While many divorcing couples understand that they'll have to divide their tangible marital assets such as houses, furniture or cars when they divorce, they seldom discuss what becomes of their digital ones.

It's essential that divorcing spouses take steps to protect their online presence, though.

Digital assets you may need to address during your divorce

One of the first things that you should do after splitting from your spouse is to create an inventory of any online accounts that you two may have shared. You'll then want to go through and update all of their passwords.

You may want to start by updating the passwords that you typically accessed on shared or synched devices. You may also want to clear their cache or factory reset them so stored passwords or commonly visited websites aren't accessible. You'll want to be careful that the new password that you use isn't too predictable since it's likely that your ex will know your typical go-to ones. You may even benefit from using a random password generation tool in such instances.

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