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.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “How can an attorney help me with my Divorce or Separation in North Carolina?”
In divorce court, as in any court, litigants must tell the truth. If they do not—aside from damaging their own case—they may face charges for perjury or contempt of court, and the fallout from telling untruths under oath may extend well beyond the courtroom, as a recent case involving a Louisiana police chief has underscored.
The chief in question is Lafayette, Louisiana Police Chief Kenny Vines. On January 20, Circuit Judge Ray Martin held Vines in contempt of court after determining that Vines had presented false documents to the court during his divorce case. Judge Martin fined Vines $100 and ordered him to serve a five-day jail sentence, although the jail sentence was suspended on the condition that Vines pay the fine.
The Fifth Circuit District Attorney’s office convened a grand jury to consider whether Vines should be charged with perjury in connection with false statements Vines made about the divorce documents while under oath. Last Friday, a Chambers County grand jury indicted Vines on perjury charges. As soon as Vines was informed of the indictment, he entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors.
According to a statement released on Monday by Fifth-Circuit prosecutors, Vines pled guilty to second-degree perjury and the perjury charge arose out of statements Vines had made to the Circuit Court while under oath. Vines was sentenced to six months in prison, but the sentence was suspended on the condition that he complete twelve months of probation.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “My wife and I are not getting along If I leave the house, can she get me for abandonment?”
A well-known divorce mediator is encouraging people who are considering divorce to dispense with some common myths before taking the proverbial leap away from and out of marriage—especially if the marriage involves children.
To be frank, divorce mediator Debra Macleod says anyone considering divorce needs to stop lying to oneself about the effect the process will have on children—and on oneself.
First and foremost, if a person thinks divorce is going to solve all of one’s problems—even one’s problems with a (soon-to-be-ex) spouse, one may have another thing coming. In fact, being divorced may introduce a whole new host of heretofore un-encountered issues with one’s (now ex) spouse.
Now that you are divorced and sharing custody of your children, you have to contend with your ex-spouse’s new boyfriend or girlfriend. You now “have no control over the strangers that waltz in and out of your child’s life.”
And that’s a shame—a shame for you but more so a shame for the child who brought none of this upon oneself. Macleod says most divorces are caused by the mixing of “two self-focused, short-sighted adults who wallow in their own misery” and who don’t spend enough time thinking about others—namely their kids.
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.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What can I do to gain custody of my child in North Carolina?”
Holidays are all about tradition, and as Heather Gray writes for Yahoo Parenting, divorced dads can get the feeling over the holidays that “traditions don’t really exist” for them anymore.
If what a divorced dad has in mind for a happy, fulfilling holiday doesn’t square up with reality, the first step towards making a happy holiday a reality is becoming clear about exactly what a divorced dad wants. One may not—due to opposition from an ex-wife, due to legal agreements or other circumstances—be able to get everything one wants, but it is important to begin with a clear picture of what one believes happiness must include.
The worst that can happen is an ex will say no. The ex has Christmas with the kids. It’s in the custody order, that’s it.
But that’s not it, and if relations are generally amicable between a divorced dad and his ex, perhaps there is room for compromise. Maybe there is something a divorced dad can offer in return for holiday time with children. Perhaps on an upcoming weekend the children can remain with their mother instead of spending the weekend with their father, as is their custom.
Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Does adultery affect my divorce case?”
New York real-estate investor Robert Rothenberg has threatened to sue his 35-year-old former lover—the Israeli singer and actress Ayelet Argaman—accusing Argaman of swindling him out of lavish gifts made in contemplation of marriage. Really, Rothenberg says, Argaman was leading him on and using him for his money.
Argaman—who has appeared in minor roles in television series including The Sopranos and Law & Order—said she and Rothenberg began dating in September 2013. Rothenberg—20 years Argaman’s senior—lavished his young lover with $1.3 million in gifts, including a $100,000 per-month stipend for expenses.
Rothenberg forwarded Argaman emails from Rabbis praising him for being a “charitable religious man.” He also promised he would use his connections to get Argaman’s album produced. Argaman disclosed messages detailing Rothenberg’s efforts at wooing her. While he acknowledged that Argaman probable wanted “a younger version of himself,” he posited that “God works in ways we don’t understand” and that Argaman’s “softness, depth and soul” intrigued him.
Rothenberg stepped up the wooing this past spring, purchasing a $1.4 million one-bedroom apartment in Trump Palace on Manhattan’s Upper East Side for Argaman. He later signed an agreement granting Argaman a 60-percent share in the holding company that owns the apartment. Under the agreement, Argaman would have the option to buy out Rothenberg’s 40-percent share if their relationship did not last until May 2015.
It didn’t, and now Rothenberg wants the apartment back.
Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog