Earlier this month, I wrote a blog called Court’s Should Not Issue FROs to Address Parenting Issues. That blogged addressed a case where the trial court entered a Final Restraining Order (FRO) to remedy custody and parenting...more
Over the years, I have blogged several times on the Appellate Division rejecting a trial court’s use of a formula to calculate alimony as opposed to a fulsome consideration of the statutory alimony factors. I blogged about...more
Alimony is generally modifiable if a substantial and continuing change of circumstances can be shown. Typically, when we think about changes of circumstances in this regard, we generally look at financial changes of...more
Social media has become a prevalent part of people’s lives. Many people post about how great their life is or about the good things that their children do (guilty as charged.) Others debate politics. Some post pictures of the...more
2/9/2024
/ Consent Order ,
Cyberbullying ,
Divorce ,
Domestic Violence ,
Facebook ,
Harassment ,
Restraining Orders ,
Sensitive Personal Information ,
Social Media ,
Spouses ,
TRO
Going back more than three decades, there are Appellate Division cases that offer caution about the abuse of the domestic violence statute to get a leg up in an impending or pending divorce or custody matter. At around the...more
Last week, I blogged about the new statute that closed the block hole that existed when a party who held most or all of the assets died during while a divorce was pending. Specifically, the new statute permits the court to...more
What happens when a party dies in the middle of divorce? Under the law, the divorce action abates and the matter is over. In many cases, that is to the benefit of the surviving spouse because, in most cases, they would...more
For many divorce attorneys, the busy season starts after the first of the year. Since practically the inception of this blog, I have posted on the phenomenon of the New Year’s Resolution Divorce. For whatever reason, this...more
On November 14, 2023, the Appellate Division decided an interesting case that implicated the intersection of family law, estate law and federal law. The reported (precedential) decision In the Matter of the Estate of Michael...more
Almost like King Solomon suggesting that a child be cut in two so that each parent can have half, more and more, I am hearing about judges and custody evaluators who default to 50-50 shared parenting. Now, that isn’t the law....more
From the earliest days of this blog in 2008, one of my frequent topics has been the use of parent coordinators. Originally, there was a Pilot Program instituted by the Supreme Court for use of parent coordinators. At the...more
It should come as no surprise that after the end of a relationship, people sometimes do bad things to the former love of their life. Really, it’s a tale as old as time. But what if, as an act of retaliation, a party makes a...more
I have written a bunch on this blog about the use of parent coordinators. In fact, one of the most read blog posts on this blog, almost 4 years after it was initially published, is titled The Futility of Parent Coordination...more
From time to time, we have written regarding pet custody, though there is very little case law on the issue. Historically, pets were treated as chattel (property) and courts did not enter custody and visitation orders for...more
I still hear people call the 2014 Amendments to the alimony statute “the new statute.” Almost 9 years later, it is no longer new. That said, since that time, there is still not a lot of law interpreting it other than several...more
Parental alienation cases are hard. They are hard for the alienated parent. They are hard on the Judge, who may not have the tools or the time to effectively deal with the problem and/or otherwise, initially dismiss the...more
For many divorce attorneys, the busy season starts after the first of the year. Since practically the inception of this blog, I have posted on the phenomenon of the New Year’s Resolution Divorce. For whatever reason, this...more
Yesterday, I posted the Top 10 Posts in 2022 on our NJ Family Law Blog as measured by page views. Aside from publishing the posts directly on our blog, the posts are also shared on a content aggregator, JD Supra which...more
The end of the year is the time for holiday merriment and top 10 lists. As a kid, I used to love to listen to Casey Kasem’s countdown of the top songs of the year. So I decided to do a top 10 list related to posts on this...more
12/20/2022
/ Alimony ,
Child Custody ,
Child Support Modification ,
Co-Parenting ,
Cohabitation ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Divorce ,
Equitable Distribution ,
Family Businesses ,
Hedge Funds ,
Marital Assets ,
Marital Settlement Agreements ,
Name Changes ,
Parenting Plans ,
Parenting Time ,
Transgender ,
Vaccinations
I have blogged many times about the fact that there is no formula for alimony, and moreover, whenever a trial court imposes a formula, it is always reversed by the Appellate Division. In 2020, I blogged on the last reported...more
Every now and then, you read a case and just scratch your head. I have been doing this for 30 years and I get how emotional the divorce process can be. I get that some people just don’t want to get divorced, while at the same...more
Often, people resolve the issue of the marital home with one party buying the other out. While people often agree on the value of a home to use to calculate the buyout, sometimes, they can’t agree. In that case, people often...more
For more than twenty years, the case of Brown v. Brown, decided by the Appellate Division in 2002, essentially changed the standard of value in divorce cases from fair market value to fair value or fair market value without...more
When parties settle their cases, many if not most, expect that their agreement that they spent months or years negotiation will finally provide them with some peace. After all, if someone agrees to do something in an...more
The Family Court in New Jersey is a court of equity. Accordingly, old, if not ancient “equitable principles” or maxims are supposed to apply. One such maxim is that he who seeks equity must do equity. Over the course of...more
1/24/2022
/ Creditors ,
Divorce ,
Equitable Distribution ,
Failure to Comply ,
Hedge Funds ,
Marital Estate ,
Marital Settlement Agreements ,
Modification ,
Motion to Compel ,
Settlement ,
Unclean Hands