Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold answers the question: “What children’s expenses are covered by child support?”
MarketWatch shared a reader query this week from a man named Marc who wanted to know if he could sue his “deadbeat dad” for the decades of unpaid child support his father owed him and his mother. Marc’s father, from whom he has been estranged for the last 15 years, owes child support debt dating all the way back to 1956.
Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold answers the question: “How Can I protect myself from my spouses spending habits?”
If you’re preparing for a North Carolina divorce, you likely know to take your house, cars, bank accounts and retirement funds into consideration before dividing assets. These are the kinds of things that everyone thinks about when they think of property. They’re tangible and easy to identify. While it’s crucial that these easier items be accounted for, it’s just as important to remember those more complicated bits of property, including intellectual property, as they can end up being very valuable down the road and can provide important income to fund your future.
Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold answers the question: “How Can I protect myself from my spouses spending habits?”
Courts across the country continue to grapple with last year’s same-sex marriage ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. Though the decision altered the legal landscape nationwide, the Supreme Court left much of the implementation to the state courts, issuing a very broad decision. It is now up to the lower courts to work through the many challenges that decision will create.
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.
Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “What children’s expenses are not covered by child support?”
A Duke University researcher who set out to test whether the adage that unmarried parents are most receptive to the idea of getting married in the “magic moment” right after a child’s birth was true found out the post-birth magic lasts longer than a moment.
Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question “Can any attorney help me with my family law needs in North Carolina?”
Splitting household chores equally seemed like a good idea at the time, but that was before the divorce. How could one have known that splitting chores increased the odds of getting divorced?
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?”
Legislators in Maryland are considering changes to what the Hagerstown, Maryland Herald-Mail says is one of the nation’s most restrictive divorce laws.
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.”
Charlotte Divorce Lawyer Blog