The Story of a Perfect Man and Woman

Over the course of the last five months we have walked together through various aspects of a do-it-yourself divorce. We have touched on a number of issues, including child support, spousal support, alimony, maintenance, filing Petitions, Responses and motions. We have also provided links to your state’s divorce laws, free online legal forms, child support enforcement agencies and articles about relevant issues, and discussed the different methods of resolving your divorce: going to court, mediation or using the collaborative divorce process. Today, we would like to suggest that you take some time to review your progress and/or the challenges you are facing in divorce, and reconsider asking a lawyer or mediator for help with your case.

This suggestion is being made because we are familiar with divorce, dissolution and legal separation and we understand the intricacies that almost any divorce with assets, debts, children, disabled or unemployed spouses, long term marriages and/or “fault”, entail. In other words, we know that unless you and your husband have been married for a very, very short time and do not have children, assets, debts or complicating factors, there is probably more to your divorce than meets the ordinary eye. Thus, we want to be certain that you are exploring the depth and breadth of your circumstances, that you fully understand your legal choices and all of the decisions your make are fully informed and knowledgeable. So, this week, speak to one or more lawyers in your city and review the facts in your case, the things you have already done, and those which remain unfinished. You may use these tools to Find a Lawyer and/or Free Legal help.

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Collaborative Family Lawyer and Mediator J. Mark Weiss is recognized and respected as a leader in Washington for his expertise in divorce matters in general, and collaborative divorce in particular. He is one of a handful of attorneys in the greater Seattle area who have ended highly successful careers in litigation to become even more successful in non-adversarial dispute resolution. Mark has received numerous honors, including “Attorney of the Year” by the Family Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association in 2005, and “Super Lawyer” by Washington Law and Politics magazine, and the highest possible rating by Avvo. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Mark may be contacted at info@mark-weiss.com or (206) 622-6707.

Mark took time out of his busy schedule to be interviewed by The Modern Woman’s Divorce Guide. Here are his answers to our questions.

1. What are the grounds for divorce in your state? The marriage is irretrievably broken.

2. Does fault (such as infidelity or domestic violence) affect the outcome of a divorce in your state? If so, how? Fault has no affect on the financial aspects of a divorce, except under extraordinary situations such when a spouse “wasted” marital property,
which has a very high standard.

3. If a woman is preparing for divorce what, if anything, can she do to improve the outcome of her case? Learn as much as possible ahead of time, and be prepared. If needed, get counseling to be able to be willing to ask for what you really need.

4. What are some of the biggest obstacles women face in divorce? When a woman has given up a career for a marriage or children, the lost seniority and experience can have significant long-term economic consequences. It can be very useful to engage a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst or other qualified financial professional to learn what the real-world long-term consequences of decisions might be.

5. When should a woman take her case to trial? When shouldn’t she? Trials are rarely “won” – they are often lost or lost worse. A trial may be necessary when your spouse is unable or unwilling to make rational decisions based on reality, or is unwilling to proceed in good faith. Make sure your attorney knows all the facts, and follow her or his advice.

6. How can a woman make divorce easier on her children? The most important thing is to ensure that the children are not exposed to the parental conflict in any way. Children are smart, and will pick up on tone, body language, and statements. Children may inaccurately see themselves as responsible for the divorce, and will be confused, looking to the parents for clues. They know that they are half yours and half your spouse’s, so any negative comment about your spouse will at some level be taken as a negative comment about them. Reassure the children that both parents love them, and demonstrate that you and your spouse will continue as parents, but not as a couple. Advice from a mental health child specialist can be very useful.

7. What qualities should a woman look for in a divorce lawyer? Someone who listens and is compassionate, and who brings perspective, in addition to good technical knowledge.

8. What should a woman do if she disagrees with her divorce lawyer’s recommendations? First, talk with your lawyer about the disagreement, and the reason for the disagreement. Depending on the nature of the disagreement, maybe seek a second opinion. Ultimately, your decision will affect you, and lawyers are required to follow their clients’ decisions to the extent allowed by ethics rules.

9. If you could impart any of your wisdom to a woman who is going through divorce, what would it be? First, seek counseling as soon as possible, to deal with the very important emotional divorce. Second, explore non-adversarial methods of dispute resolution. While not right for everyone, methods such as mediation and collaborative law may help you achieve a better outcome at less expense, but it is more difficult to utilize those processes after an adversarial process has started. Third, if an adversarial process is inevitable, ask your attorney to try to pursue procedures that will help keep costs down without compromising the quality of the representation.

10. Are there any divorce books or resources that you would like to recommend to women going through divorce?

The Good Divorce

Collaborative Divorce: The Revolutionary New Way to Restructure Your Family, Resolve Legal Issues, and Move on with Your Life

Divorce: A Problem to Be Solved, Not a Battle to Be Fought

Building a Parenting Agreement That Works: How to Put Your Kids First When Your Marriage Doesn’t Last

The Truth About Children and Divorce: Dealing with the Emotions So You and Your Children Can Thrive

How to Talk to Your Children About Divorce

WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?: RAISING YOUR CHILDREN BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER DIVORCE

If your husband isn’t supporting your children and you can’t make ends meet, it’s time to ask for child support. Child support is calculated using standardized state child support guidelines and child support calculators. These tools allow parents, attorneys, mediators and judges to use the same information and formulas in every case to ensure the consistent application of child support laws. You may also use the online child support calculators and guidelines to estimate support payments you might be required to make or you may receive from your husband.

If you and your husband are negotiating the terms of your divorce, you can work together to determine the appropriate amount of child support. However if you do this, make sure you review your state’s child support laws to be certain your agreement meets the statutory requirements for setting support. If you and your husband are involved in a traditional divorce process, you may be able to ask your local child support enforcement agency to establish and enforce child support payments for you. State operated child support agencies do not charge for their services and their lawyers often do everything legally necessary to ensure child support payments are made. If your agency can’t help you, you may also file a court motion and ask the court for an order. To do this, download your state’s legal forms and instructions and get started.

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Q. Dear Donna, Is there a law in California that states a brother & sister cannot share a room? My niece is 5 and her half brother is 10 and their dad is divorcing my sister but he plans on having them share a room in his new apartment. I heard that he couldn’t. Is that right? ~Concerned in California

A. I sense your concern is about protecting your very young niece when in a setting without Mom’s supervision, particularly in view of the different genders and the fact that they are half siblings. Have the two children been living together before the divorce? Read the rest of the Divorce Expert’s answer…

Q. My wife and I are getting a divorce and we have worked everything out between ourselves. I am keeping property that I owned before the marriage. Now, before signing our agreement, my wife has gone to see a lawyer and the lawyer is asking me for a lot of financial information. Why does the lawyer want all of this information and what are they trying to do? ~Worried in Washington

A. I’m glad you wrote! This is how to de-code what is happening: 1) your wife wants to…Read the rest of Divorce Lawyer Donna Beck Weaver’s answer…

Q. I have been sober for 8 years, but my husband still drinks and he is verbally abusive, for which I go to counseling. We have been married for 10 years, lived together for 16 years and don’t have any children. We have come to such a stalemate and are in a very low-income, no job area in Utah. My question is this…Do I qualify for alimony? ~Unpaid in Utah

A. Kudos to you for your long sobriety! And kudos for pursuing your education. You have your “priorities on straight”, as my mother used to say. Your next wise moves are to analyze your financial picture so that you will understand the impact of making changes on the family front. This way, you get to be the chooser of your circumstances…Read the rest of the California Certified Family Law Specialist’s answer…

Do you have a question for Divorce Lawyer and Expert Dear Donna?

If you do, please submit your question by completing form. Dear Donna will choose one to three reader’s questions to answer each month and her answers will be published in her column on our website.

Read MORE Dear Donna Q & As

Just Ask Dear Donna is a monthly column that is authored by Donna Beck Weaver (”Dear Donna”), a Los Angeles attorney with 30 years of family law experience. Dear Donna is the perfect person to answer your questions about the legal, financial and emotional aspects of divorce. Dear Donna is a veteran family law attorney and former litigator. A member of the prestigious American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), Ms. Weaver is a Board Certified Family Law Specialist, State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. Ms. Weaver practiced for more than a decade with the well-known Los Angeles family law litigation firm of Trope and Trope (Britney Spears’s former family law firm). Ms. Weaver left Trope and Trope to open a practice devoted to resolution of family law matters using innovative processes such as collaborative law and mediation.

This is not legal advice. You should consult an attorney if you have legal questions that relate to your specific divorce. Technorati Tags: divorce, lawyer, divorce expert, donna beck weaver, trope trope, britney spears, law firm, ask a lawyer, legal answers, divorce questions, family attorney, divorced, marriage, alimony, spousal support, maintenance, alcohol and divorce, divorce and education, just ask dear donna, children and divorce, kids and divorce, women, woman, law

How can rookie freelance writers, designers, and programmers help ensure they stay in business? Here are seven of my favorite tips for breaking in, negotiating pay, wrangling your schedule, and playing nice with other freelancers.

I fled the cube 15 years ago to work as a freelance writer, and I’m happy to report that I’ve yet to be evicted from my home or wind up on food stamps. As a result, I’m constantly asked to share my top tips for would-be and newbie freelancers. Here are a few of my tried and trues:

Turn down some of the gigs. Don’t automatically accept every project you’re offered (unless of course, you can’t remember the last time you ate something other than a condiment). Instead, choose a handful of topics and industries to specialize in. Building a niche or three makes you far more marketable. Besides, some jobs are so downright miserable that you’re better off eating Ramen for a few days than tying up your schedule with them.

Diversify. Putting all your eggs in one basket — especially in a skittish economy — is asking for trouble. Make sure no client accounts for more than 20 to 30 percent of your revenue. Besides keeping you in the black, it’ll keep you from burning out on repeat topics. Because, really, who wants to write about home colonics every day of the week?

Hit up your ex-boss for work. There’s no better freelance lead than someone who already knows and loves you. (For the sake of argument, I’m assuming you left your day job on good terms.) Managers live to hire freelancers who are already familiar with their SOPs and corporate culture. And we freelancers love knowing in advance who we’re really getting into bed with.

Give it away for free. We all know that doing a few freebies is the best way to gain experience in a niche when you have none. But don’t just give it away to just anyone. Shoot for high-profile gigs that pay in prestige and visibility, like helping with a sizable charity fundraiser or contributing to a well-read but shallow-pocketed magazine. Often these projects will lead to bigger and better ones.

Never give your rate on the spot. People will ask what you charge in person, on the phone, over email, via IM. Ask questions about the project particulars first, then tell them you’ll get back to them within 24 hours (preferably later that day or first thing the next morning). It’s far too easy to sell yourself short when you haven’t had a chance to mull over all the project details.

Don’t do lunch. Yes, you need camaraderie when you work solo. But you don’t need a big fat timesuck right in the middle of your workday. Get your work done first, then meet your freelance comrades for late-afternoon coffee or chow.

Do refer other freelancers. Unless you’re looking to start your own subcontracting business or talent agency, there’s no reason to keep all leads to yourself when you’re booked and one of your prized clients comes calling. Most freelancers are not out to screw you and steal your clients; just make sure you agree that your client stays your client. Many fellow freelancers will return the favor when the tables are turned. Once you’re an outsourcing commodity, there’s plenty of work to go around.

Michelle Goodman is a Seattle-based freelance writer and author of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide: Practical Career Advice for Women Who Think Outside the Cube (Seal Press, 2007) and My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire (Seal Press, Fall 2008). She regularly blogs about career change and the boss-free life at www.anti9to5guide.com.

Last week your assignment was to learn more about alimony, spousal support and maintenance, and ask your lawyer or husband for financial help if you needed it. This week it’s time to do more than just make a casual or informal request for support, especially if your husband resoundingly said “NO” when you asked for his financial help.

If you and your husband are working towards settling your divorce, dissolution or legal separation without court involvement and he is resistant to paying support, ask him if he’ll meet with a mediator to discuss the issue. The presence of a neutral third-party facilitator with legal knowledge may help you negotiate a reasonable support payment.

If you hire a mediator, he or she will work with you and your husband in an informal setting and help you reach a mutually acceptable agreement. The final agreement will not become a court order unless it is in writing, signed by each of you and submitted to the court with a request that it be made a legally enforceable court judgment - so it is important that you memorialize any support obligations and obtain the court’s endorsement. An experienced family/divorce mediator can draft and file the appropriate documents you need. To get started, find a mediator in your city or county with experience in divorce, dissolution or legal separation and schedule a meeting as soon as possible.

If, on the other hand, your husband is being unreasonable and unwilling to compromise in any way, research your state’s procedures for scheduling a hearing where a judge can decide the issue. Begin with your state’s divorce forms, which usually include pre-printed motions that enable you to “move” or ask the court to order your husband to pay spousal support, alimony or maintenance. The names of the appropriate legal forms differ by state and may be called an “Order to Show Cause”, like they are in California and New York, or “A Motion and Declaration for Temporary Order” as is the case in Washington. Once you complete these forms you must file them with the court clerk, select a hearing date and serve the documents on your husband or his attorney before a date certain. The deadline for serving your legal forms on your husband or his attorney is designed to ensure your husband has sufficient notice of your request for support and time to respond in writing before you both appear before a judge in court. The deadline and other detailed requirements for the legal process are generally found in your local court rules, which are preprinted and mostly available online or in your local law library.

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Family lawyers who are well versed in their professions may not fully comprehend what it feels like to be a non-lawyer, who is getting divorced and trying to represent herself. So, I’ve decided to create a hypothetical situation where I am a woman in Texas, who is divorcing her husband of five years, and representing herself. For this experiment, my imaginary husband and I did not sign a pre-nuptial agreement, we’re both employed, we do not have any children and we own a home and two cars together (and the break-up is friendly). Neither of us has gotten divorced before and consequently, I know very little, if anything, about Texas laws. I will be researching everything I need to know in order to get legally divorced. As I do this, I will be sharing my steps and thoughts with you. My method may not be the “recommended method” for you to follow, but may certainly be an adventure from which you can learn. I have randomly chosen the Texas, but I believe the steps I take should be applicable in others, so even if you live in New York, Illinois or Washington, feel free to follow along with me….Are you ready? If you are….here we go.

Step One: I click on the State Resources tab at the top of this page and select Texas from the menu. When the Texas resource page appears I find the residency requirements and grounds for divorce nicely summarized at the top of the page. I first read the grounds, and although they seem convoluted, I conclude that even though my husband and I are still friendly, our relationship is such that there is not “any reasonable expectation of reconciliation.” Good, we have a legitimate reason for getting a divorce in Texas. Next, I read the residency requirements and confirm that being a permanent, legal resident of Dallas, Texas for 10 years covers the six month preceding “domiciliary” and 90 day county requirements and I can therefore, file for divorce in Dallas.

Step Two: I scroll down the Texas resource page and click on Divorce Forms Online. I then do a lot more clicking - first on the link for the Do It Yourself Court Forms Free, then on the link for In Texas WITHOUT Children, and then on Instructions and again, on the complete packet (which includes the instructions). The instructions and complete packet are now downloaded onto my computer.

Step Three: I open the complete divorce packet and begin reading the Instructions…then I realize I need a coffee break…so I pause, get my coffee and begin reading.

Stay tuned for the next steps.

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My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.

My wife asks, “Do you know her?” “Yes,” I sighed, “She’s my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn’t been sober since.”

“My God!” says my wife, “Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?”

*Original source unknown. Technorati Tags: humor, jokes, funny, laughs, relationship, husband, wife, marriage, just for fun

If you or your husband have filed for divorce, dissolution or legal separation and you can’t make ends meet, it is time to consider asking for financial support.

Alimony, spousal support and maintenance are not gender based and having children is not a prerequisite. Support is an income substitute that may be paid temporarily, for a limited term, long-term or in a lump sum. The legal right to receive support is not guaranteed, but may be established by agreement or a court order entered upon a finding that one spouse has the means and the other, the need. If you are in the early phases of your divorce, dissolution or legal separation and have not yet divided your assets, temporary support may be the appropriate financial relief to keep you afloat until the details of your case are resolved. The subject of support is often a very touchy subject and can be quite volatile, but it should not be avoided if it is a necessity. So, this week, your assignment is to learn more about Alimony, spousal support and maintenance or, if you have children, family support or unallocated alimony, then to speak with your lawyer and/or husband to determine if and when you can begin receiving payments. Alternatively, if you are the breadwinner in your relationship, you should also consider whether your husband is entitled to, or should receive financial assistance from you.

Technorati Tags: alimony, divorcesupport, spouse, support, pay, family support, spousal support, maintenance, paying support, receiving support, financial aid, wife, husband, family, children, separated, divorce, divorced, legal law