Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold answers the question: “Do I need an attorney to get a Divorce in North Carolina?”
Going to court can be a scary thing, even when you haven’t done anything wrong. The formal setting, the judge, the lawyers, all of that can lead to stress among those facing a divorce court appearance. People often fear saying or doing the wrong thing and waste unnecessary energy worrying about something that isn’t deserving of the anxiety. To find out some tips for how to conduct yourself in court and hopefully save stress for things that matter, keep reading.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”
After the fun and (admit it) consternation of planning and following through with a wedding, couples are generally allowed a bit of spare time away from everything and everyone. That special post-wedding time is called a honeymoon.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Custody battles between parents in a litigated divorce case can turn into ugly proxy wars in which, sadly, children serve unwillingly on the front lines. The battles, which often have little to do with the children themselves, are instead often “about control and winning and lashing out” when one parent feels hurt by the words or actions of another.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” Is there some property that the judge cannot divide?”
The split between New York media executive Noah Szubski from the daughter of “Wild Wild West” star Robert Conrad is heating up, with Szubski and Chelsea Conrad waging a courtroom battle over Cash.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”
Until death do us part, in sickness and in health? As for sickness, not so much.
That is, at least, according to a new study spearheaded by Amelia Karraker, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University.
Her study—published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior—shows that married women who are diagnosed with a serious health condition are at greater odds of being divorced by or from their spouses than healthy married women.
Karraker and colleague Kenzie Latham studied marriage data from 1992 to 2010 compiled by the Health and Retirement Study at the University of Michigan. They looked at rates of cancer, heart disease, lung disease and stroke among married women during that timeframe.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can any attorney help me with my family law needs in North Carolina?”
Remorse is, perhaps, the most difficult of human emotions. Anyone who has passed through the crucible of divorce may know what it means to contend with remorse, or to contend with “what could have been.”
Sadly, many divorces leave a trail of broken hearts. These include the hearts of children, who are often unwitting, innocent victims of a broken marriage.
Adult children of divorced or divorcing parents are not immune to these feelings. To an adult child whose parents have been married for decades, the concept of divorce—at least applied to one’s own parents—may seem foreign. What’s more, because adult children tend to move away from their parents’ home, they may miss signs of marital trouble displayed behind closed doors.
Ellen Huerta, who writes about romantic breakups on her website Mend, recalls that since her parents’ marriage had survived her own childhood and young adulthood, she just assumed it would last forever—or until death did them part.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What does a “No-Fault’ divorce mean in NC?”
About one-half of American marriages end in divorce.
Marriage counselors have been preaching that prevailing wisdom to couples for decades. People who have been through a messy divorce may point to the statistic with a disillusioned “I told you so” attitude. Divorce attorneys and other professionals who often deal with the most contentious divorces may feel even more disillusionment.
Researchers, however, can put their feelings aside and study the raw data. As consumers, as human beings and as professionals working in family law matters, we rely on the data and upon the work of researchers studying the data for a portrait of what marriage and divorce look like in the United States.
For a variety of reasons, our ability to rely on accurate data may be disappearing.
For years, researchers in the family-law field have relied on statistics compiled by the United States Government in its American Community Survey. It is the ground zero, so to speak, for researchers interested in marriage and divorce trends across different age groups, ethnicities and cultures within the United States.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can I get the judge to order my spouse to pay my attorney’s fees in a property division case?”
The Huffington Post has identified what it describes as “a narrow group of smart, rational and reasonable individuals” who will join the flood of people all over the country starting the New Year by ending their marital relationships. It is, after all, the busiest time of year for divorce lawyers; however, these “smart, rational and reasonable” individuals will not be joining the flood of phone calls to divorce lawyers’ offices.
Diane L. Danois, J.D., says smart people don’t need divorce lawyers. First, she argues, much of family law is form-based, and most of the forms are available online at no cost. Even samples of Separation Agreements, Property Agreements and Custody Agreements can be found online and tailored—by “smart, rational and reasonable” individuals—to fit an individual couple’s needs.
As for property division, Danois says, financial affidavits guide couples through the steps of disclosing and labeling assets and liabilities. Smart people can figure out what martial property is, presumably. The assumption Ms. Danois appears to make, however, is that parties to marital relationships all have sharing, cooperative attitudes. Many people end up in my office, however, because of their spouses’ uncooperative and—at times—abusive and controlling attitudes. They need advocates to stand up for them because they feel intimidated by a spouse and by the legal system.
Of course, uncooperative, controlling, manipulative spouses would likely not fit under Ms. Danois’ definition of “smart, rational and reasonable” individuals, so perhaps the couples in need of divorce lawyers—by asserting the opposite of the premise—are those which feature at least one spouse who is uncooperative, or not “smart.”
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How can an attorney help me with my Divorce or Separation in North Carolina?”
Heather Brassner’s marriage ended five years ago, but she was only able to get a Florida judge to sign off on her divorce this past Wednesday.
In so doing, Brassner, her now ex-wife Megan Lade and Broward County Circuit Judge Dale Cohen made history. The Brassner-Lade divorce marks the Sunshine State’s first same-sex divorce.
Brassner’s attorney, Nancy Brodzki, called Judge Cohen’s ruling historic, telling the Associated Press that while this is Florida’s first same-sex divorce, it will not be the last. As the Washington Post reported Monday, Columbia University statistics professor Andrew Gelman analyzed statistics comparing same-sex and traditional marriages and concluded that “the dissolution rate of same-sex marriages seems comparable to, not lower than, the divorce rate of traditional marriages.” Previous analyses had provided that the same-sex divorce rate was lower than the traditional marriage divorce rate.
Any way you slice the numbers, according to Gelman, results in lots of divorces—same-sex and traditional.
Brodzki may expecting more same-sex divorce business in Florida, but before she takes any more clients over the divorce finish line, she may have to fight Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi in court.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”
Twitter has become a new proving ground for alienations of affections actions, if Detroit Lions tight end and “self-described touchdown dancer extraordinaire” Joseph Fauria is the kind of trendsetter the tabloids hope.
He may not be. The star receiver has deleted a tweet he posted to his more-than 37,000 followers appearing to accuse his pro-wrestler girlfriend of cheating on him with Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson.
Wilson, who guided the Seahawks to the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory earlier this year, divorced his wife, Ashton, late this past summer, and was rumored for a time to be dating Lolo Jones, a former United States Olympian who has appeared on the television show Dancing With The Stars.
At the time of Wilson’s divorce, sports marketing expert Bob Dorfman told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the quarterback’s single status would help him attract more endorsement deals aimed at a younger audience and would improve his “sex appeal to women.”
Fauria insinuated that Wilson’s sex appeal was too much for his girlfriend, 24-year-old Erika Hammond, who has appeared on World Wrestling Entertainment’s now-defunct “NXT” show, which aired in 2012 and 2013 and featured up-and-coming wrestlers.
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