Florida Divorce * Child Custody * Domestic Violence Law Lawyer | Boca Raton

How do you punish a young child who misbehaves or is aggressive with family members?

This is a question that many families face at one time or another.

And there are many possible answers, lying across the spectrum from appropriate, to inappropriate – and worse.

For one Iowa mother, the ultimate solution to a child who was biting her was: to bite him back.

Local authorities didn’t second her sentiments though.

While examining her boy for an unrelated injury, hospital workers discovered and reported to police an apparently human bite mark on the child’s arm.

Although no charges have been filed at this time, the boy was taken into protective custody by the local child welfare agency.

Read more in this Daily Nonpareil [Council Bluffs, IA] article: Child in protective custody after parent bites.

Although there has been much written about it in the mainstream media and this blog, Florida is hardly the only state where the rich and the powerful have successfully cloaked their divorce (and other) proceedings in secrecy using a legal mechanism called sealing.

A high profile San Francisco attorney has zealously attempted to seal records pertaining to custody and visitation in his contested divorce case.

And that in itself has spawned quite a bit of publicity – not favorable to him.

Also unfavorable to him have been the court’s denials of the attorney’s motions to seal.

Perhaps as a result, the bitter proceedings appear to have ratcheted down, on their way to settling amicably.

Just like most family court cases eventually do.

Read more in this SF Weekly article: Sealed With a Dis – A powerful Bay Area trial lawyer with political connections tries to keep details of his messy divorce from going public.

Of course, there are many different reasons why a spouse might want a divorce. And they don’t all have to do with marital fault of a spouse or incompatibility.

One of the less common reasons to seek a divorce: to try to shelter assets from the government.

That was the reason that former Qwest CEO allegedly considered divorce. He had about $52 million at risk as a result of insider trading, of which he was convicted.

When allegations surfaced against him, he began transferring some of those assets into his wife’s name.

But, for anyone considering something similar, will that really do the trick? Not necessarily.

Read more in this MyFox Colorado article: Prosecutors: Nacchio Considered Divorce to Protect Assets – Former Qwest CEO Faces Sentencing for Insider Trading Conviction.

Sometimes, shortly after divorce follows remarriage.

If there are children, that means stepparents and stepsiblings and complex new relationships for children of divorce. Tensions and resentments can run high when the split-off family unit expands.

In Jackson, Michigan, counselors are working with families to facilitate the union into a stepfamily.

Difficulties can range from the sublime to the ridiculous, from who signs a report card, who gives permission for a school trip to what holidays the family will celebrate and how they will celebrate them.

Since the process doesn’t come with a roadmap, some guidance from trained professionals who may have been down that path may save a lot of time and agony.

Read more in this Jackson [MI] Citizen Patriot article: Stepfamilies learn to deal with divorce.

She did everything right …

The court awarded her residential custody of her children. When she decided that she wanted to move to the US with her kids, she obtained permission from the Australian court last year, ahead of time.

The Australian court ordered her to send the kids back to Australia to visit with their father twice a year. So she did.

She did everything right.

And on what was likely the second such visit, the father abducted their younger child.

She made an application for return of the twelve year old boy to the US under the Hague Convention. But the boy can’t be returned if he can’t be found.

She and her daughter had to move back to Australia, leaving their new lives in the US behind, to be closer to the search.

But after three months, her son still hasn’t been found. They believe that the father is on the run with him in a mobile home.

Neither mother, his sister or any of his friends in the US or Australia has heard from him by e-mail or phone.

She did everything right …

Read more in this Border Mail article: Mother’s frantic plea after boy fails to fly home – ‘Please help find my son’.

South Carolina woman tries four different times to secure a domestic violence injunction against her allegedy abusive boyfriend.

For unstated reasons, three temporary injunctions were never served on him.

The man reportedly physically abused the woman and stalked her over a ten year period, and killed their daughter’s cat and pet rooster in front of her.

The woman and her daughter took refuge in a church on five separate occasions, and the woman talked about the abuse to two aunts.

Then came the day that the man rolled their daughter across the floor “like a bowling ball”, and threatened both of their lives.

And the woman shot and killed him.

The woman was convicted of manslaughter.

The trial judge barred third party testimony as to the woman’s state of mind based on her accounts of the abuse, which testimony was offered to support her claim of self defense. The appeals court upheld the trial judge’s ruling and the conviction.

Two appellate level judges criticized the rulings as depriving the woman of the opportunity to prove her defense.

Ironically, the appellate court claimed to be committed to protecting victims of domestic violence.

Read more in this Charleston Daily Mail article: Albright says justices need to learn abuse law.

Does prosecuting juvenile offenders in adult courts deter and reduce crime?

According to studies cited in an editorial, the answer is a clear no.

It is reported that juveniles who serve “adult time” typically go on to commit more violent crimes later on than juveniles processed through the juvenile justice system.

So where do kids face justice? And where should they face justice?

Another study concludes that some 200,000 children run through the adult court system for nonviolent offenses could be better dealt with through the juvenile system.

Apparently, several states routinely escalate kids into the adult justice system for fairly minor infractions.

According to the article, several states are now acting to make it easier to keep juvenile offenders in the juvenile justice system, in the hope of better outcomes for youthful offenders – and society as a whole.

Read more in this New York Times editorial: Juvenile Injustice.

NYU Sociology Professor Dalton Conley proposes isolating the legal rights conferred by marriage – and making them each individually transferable to a partner (or purchaser) of choice.

This view of marriage as a contractual relationship represents a shift in values.

An apparently unintended benefit of the Professor’s proposal is that it could certainly simplify the divorce process.

In the hypothetical world proposed, all rulings in a divorce should be governed by a contract entered prior to marriage, subject to modification by one or more additional contracts entered during the marriage. In other words, all married couples should have prenuptial agreements and some would also have one or more postnuptial agreements.

Read more in this New York Times article: Spread the Wealth of Spousal Rights.

A Denver boy is dead – just a few months after a judge awarded custody of him and his half-brother to his “psychological father”, who had been investigated by the local social services agency.

The boys’ mother had previously been incarcerated for child neglect, and the court had limited her visitation with the boys.

The surviving boy was placed in foster care when his father and stepmother were charged with murder of his older half-brother.

As questions surfaced about the role of social services in the tragedy, the agency defended that its responsibility for the boys ended when the court entered a final custody judgment.

Post-judgment follow-ups are not routine in such situations.

It is unclear whether the alleged murderer treated his biological son different from the boy who the court ruled related to him as his “psychological father”.

Read more in this Denver Post article: Custody decisions close caseworkers’ book.

Federal law enables deployed soldiers to put most civil proceedings against them on hold while they are serving their country.

But practically since the beginning of the war in Iraq, soldiers (and their advocates) have been speaking out against family courts rendering child custody modification decisions while they are away on deployment and unable to participate in the proceedings.

Read more in this Associated Press article in the Roanoke Times: Forced to fight battles on both fronts and this Newday article: Wartime Custody Deals Would Be Protected.

Both articles focus on the admittedly important parental rights of the deployed parent.

However, it is unrealistic to deny that there is any impact on the innocent children whose lives are uprooted by their parent’s deployment. Or that the children’s rights (or best interests) may support the children remaining with the other parent – even after the previously deployed parent returns.

Family court proceedings are not just like other civil court proceedings. And children are not the same as a car loan or apartment lease.

The policy and human considerations are just more complex.

A Pennsylvania court has held that a sperm donor may be a “third parent” and owe a duty of support to his biological children.

The sperm donor in question had an occasional, recurring relationship with his biological offspring and voluntarily provided money to them from time to time.

The sperm donor has since passed away.

But the court nonetheless sees a continuing duty of support, which may be met from the deceased biological father’s estate.

This is an unusual fact pattern, but many anticipate action from the legislature to clarify the proposition that a child can have only two parents, who owe a duty a support.

Read more in this York Daily Record article: Pa. could add a third parent.

In many states, Florida included, one of the criteria for awarding custody of a child is whether the proposed custodial parent is likely to foster continuing, frequent, meaningful contact with the other parent.

Of course, that’s normally an important, legitimate consideration, since a child is entitled to have a relationship with both parents.

But what about families where one of the parents abuses or molests the child?

Are steps taken by one parent to secure a child against unprotected contact with an abusive and/or molesting parent properly viewed as failing to foster continuing, frequent, meaningful contact with the abusing and/or molesting parent?

Well, according to many parents, that is precisely the view of too many US courts.

Ten such mothers banded together just before this Mother’s Day weekend to file a complaint directed against US family courts with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights, a last resort forum.

Also joining in the complaint is a former child victim, custody of whom was awarded to a sexual abuser. And anti-abuse and anti-violence organizations.

Read more in this PR Newswire release: Mother’s Day Complaint Claims United States Courts Violate Children and Mothers’ Human Rights and at Stop Family Violence.

Victims of domestic violence are finding aid and comfort in an unexpected place – digital cameras.

Since the introduction of digital cameras to New York City police, criminal convictions for domestic violence charges have risen noticeably, in some areas dramatically – even where the victims recant by the time of trial.

Prosecutors can extract more and deeper evidentiary values from digital images than from traditional “Polaroid” pictures.

Digital evidence can be processed much more rapidly, and catalogued faster for easier retrieval.

And digital images carry greater impact for the judge and/or jury, at every stage of the case.

Digital photos are even credited with increasing the odds of incarceration pending trial and of higher bails where defendants are released pending trial.

Even willingness to enter plea bargains faster is attributed to digital “snapshots”.

Last but not least, digital images may even spare traumatized victims from having to re-tell their stories at trial.

Because a picture is worth a 1,000 words … and many convictions.

Read more in this New York Times article: In Domestic Abuse, Digital Photos Can Say More Than Victims.

1. physician
2. veterinarian
3. psychiatrist
4. chiropractor
5. podiatrist
6. psychologist
7. therapist
8. dentist
9. lawyer
10. accountant
11. bookkeeper
12. financial planner
13. financial analyst
14. appraiser
15. architect
16. consultant
17. coach
18. realtor
19. stockbroker
20. engineer
21. etc.

What do all of the above have in common?

They are all professionals who may be sole or part owners of a private professional practice.

Therefore, in the event of a divorce, a key concern of such a professional is likely going to be what rights, if any, his or her spouse may have to the practice.

An excellent introduction to how a professional practice will be valued and divided in a divorce appears in an article by my North Carolina colleague, Lee Rosen, in the Carolina NewsWire: When A Professional Divorces – Protecting a Professional Practice.

One particularly important component of value in a professional practice is probably goodwill. As Lee explains, there are two types of goodwill, personal and enterprise, – and different states treat each type differently in the event of a divorce.

As Lee explains, in a professional practice, the personal goodwill of the professional may be significant. What that means is that, without that particular individual professional, the practice may have little or no value.

There is a fairly even split among states as to whether personal goodwill of one spouse is marital property which should be divided in a divorce. (Of course, property division of a professional practice in a divorce refers only to division of the value, not of the practice itself.)

Unlike Lee’s North Carolina, in Florida, personal goodwill of a spouse is not marital property and should not be divided in a divorce.

This article is well worth reading for all stakeholders in professional practices.