Mother and Father separate. Child, a US citizen, lives with Mother and spends weekends with Father.

Federal government brings deportation proceedings against Father for multiple driving convictions.

How do immigration court and family court impact each other?

There are reportedly few guidelines for judges or parties when immigration law and family law collide with each other head-on.

Federal trial court allows Father to remain in the US, so Father can follow state court visitation and child support order (based on higher US calculations). The Court concluded that federal immigration law should defer to state policy in family law.

But a federal appeals court reversed the ruling and sent it back to the trial court. The federal government argued that the case should be viewed no differently than a run of the mill relocation case where the custodial parent seeks to move to another state.

The federal court agreed, ruling that the noncustodial parent could live in a border town – and the children could visit in the deported parent’s country. Of course, that may sit better in theory than in practice.

Whatever the outcome, Father will be violating one of two US court orders.

State courts generally only consider immigration issues from the perspective of whether the immigrant parent will likely flee with the child.

But what if the deported parent simply kept the child in the other country after visitation?

With stricter enforcement immigration laws, family court issues are anticipated to turn up in immigration courts with increasing frequency. Are they ready?

Read more in this Los Angeles Times article: Custody case of Long Beach boy complicates deportation of illegal immigrant.

Celebrity couple: Wife an actress, Husband an elderly, established theater producer.

According to Wife, Husband threatened to cut her off financially and evict her from her apartment.

Having inadequate resources to combat that until the divorce was final, she videotaped herself airing the couple’s dirty laundry, docudramatizing his alleged threats as well as other intimate matters.

Wife posted video on YouTube, a very popular site for viewing videos. Video earns 4 million “hits”. Practically the entire world sees it.

Husband accuses Wife of spousal abuse, perpetrated by publicizing her videos. Husband apparently cites this “abuse” as the grounds for the divorce. (New York remains a “fault state”.)

Wife defended that she only posted the video to generate income to keep her going until her divorce was final.

And generate income for her it did…

Read more in this [UK] Telegraph article: Tricia Walsh-Smith in court after YouTube rants and this Post Chronicle article: YouTube Sensation Tricia Walsh Smith On Day 1 Of Divorce Court.

Divorce represents one of the occasions in a person’s life when they should give some consideration to life (or estate) planning documents. Admittedly, it may not be your first thought.

But, after one of you files for divorce, do you want your spouse to be the one to make decisions about your medical treatment, or lack of same, if something should happen to you? (Recall that health care surrogate / health care proxy / medical power of attorney you executed years ago.)

And if you should become permanently or temporarily disabled after one of you files for divorce, do you want your spouse to be able to conduct all manner of financial transactions, even with your separate assets? (Recall that durable general power of attorney you executed years ago.)

And, heaven forbid, you die before your divorce is final (which may put an end to your divorce) or right afterwards, do you still want to leave all (or any) of your assets to your current spouse? (Recall that will you executed years ago.)

All of the above should be reviewed and updated as soon as one of you files. But that is far from all.

Although many, many people do not realize it, their will does not control how all of their property passes. Much of people’s property today is non-probate property, which passes in accordance with how the asset is titled or a beneficiary form. Their will has no bearing on it.

Some examples include insurance policies, IRAs, jointly titled assets and trusts.

If your spouse is in debt up to his eyeballs, do you really want your life insurance payable to him or her, if your intention is to provide for your kids? (Recall that beneficiary designation form you executed years ago.)

401(k)s seem to fit into the garden-variety non-probate category of assets too, but be forewarned that federal law kicks in to protect a surviving spouse – unless special paperwork is executed. Although your spouse probably won’t agree to it during the divorce, that paperwork can be made part of a settlement.

And then there are state elective share statutes, also designed to protect a surviving spouse no matter what the deceased spouse’s will says. But again, there is special paperwork that can take your estate out of your spouse’s reach, but your spouse probably won’t agree during the divorce.

So, in appropriate circumstances, when possible, some pre-divorce planning may be desirable.

The above are just a few of the life (or estate) planning matters you should consider when contemplating divorce.

Read more in this Newsweek article: Financial Planning: Wills And Other Ways.

An experienced upstate New York family court judge has reportedly been reprimanded as a result of an anonymous complaint.

The Commission on Judicial Conduct, a judicial review board, reviewed hundreds of hours of transcripts of the judge’s cases over a fourteen year period and found three cases where the judge’s conduct was deemed objectionable – although not harmful to the parties or their cases. All three of these cases had been in and out of the judge’s courtroom over a long period of time.

In one case, the judge rebuked two parents, both incarcerated, each seeking custody of their children.

In a second case, the incarcerated father sought custody of his children, although the mother was not incarcerated. The judge criticized the incarcerated father.

In a third case, the judge passed disparaging remarks about one of the parents seeking custody of his child, after the hearing was concluded and the parties had left the courtroom. The basis for the disparagement was not specified.

The judge apparently listens to child abandonment, abuse and neglect cases every day, all day long.

The judge was reprimanded for the above few remarks.

Read more in this Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin article: Judge admonished for language in court.

How long does a divorce take? It depends …

Couple marries in 1984. Marriage is a successful partnership of complementary business skills.

Couple prospers. In 1990, Wife in car accident. Husband reportedly drags them down into debt.

Couple separates and, in 1995, files for divorce.

Husband moves to Alabama, never to return to Florida – or its courts. Husband remarries, putting all of his assets into his new wife’s name.

In 2001, Court orders Husband to pay alimony of $6,000 per month plus Wife’s medical insurance. Court also orders property distribution to Wife of $240,000 plus substantial interests in Husband’s businesses and patents. Court also orders Husband to pay Wife’s attorney’s fees.

Husband didn’t comply with court orders, and no income deduction was ever established. Husband was held in civil contempt and indirect criminal contempt and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

All to no avail.

New actions were filed in Alabama, which culminated in court orders awarding Wife considerably less, $162,000. Period.

But Husband paid that amount.

And the attorneys took about half of it and Wife used the balance to pay off marital debt left to her.

Leaving Wife with … nothing.

Although it’s been about 13 years, and the couple has gone through 16 different attorneys and 10 different judges to arrive at that point, Wife hasn’t given up yet.

But her Florida judges have all but flat out told her she is just wasting her time, accumulating more worthless pieces of paper in her court file.

An unsatisfactory outcome, for reasons that are not entirely clear …

Read more in this St. Petersburg Times article: A divorce, unsettled , cited to from the Overlawyered website.

Pensions which are marital property may be divided as part of the marital settlement. But there is a right way and a wrong way to accomplish that.

The right way is to use a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (“QDRO”). QDROs can be complex.

QDROs must comply with detailed retirement plan provisions, and even QDROs already entered by a judge may be ignored by the plan administrator with impunity under certain circumstances.

The moral is that pensions should not be divided as an afterthought or in a rush job. Both parties must work with the plan administrator to ensure that any QDRO is plan-compliant, accomplishes the parties’ objectives in the most advantageous way for both spouses and is entered by the judge simultaneously with the final judgment.

To drive the point home, there are law firms that specialize in drafting QDROs – and nothing else. Division of retirement accounts should not be done informally.

And the division may be deemed property division – or alimony.

Read more in this Chicago Tribune article: Court order needed to split retirement accounts in divorce.

When social services removes children from a home, placing the children with relatives is generally preferable to foster care. Home studies and background checks of nearby relatives typically take place in a matter of days.

But what if the children live near a state border, and their nearby relatives live in another state? Or further away?

Enter the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children, under which bureaucratic red tape reportedly transforms what takes days within a state into months-long, even a year-long process across state lines.

Months in which children must wait in foster care to be cleared to go live with out-of-state relatives who are ready, willing and able to take them now.

Further, the Interstate Compact often provides no means for review or appeal of a rejection of placement with particular relatives.

Although many child welfare legal experts are critical of the Interstate Compact, for political reasons, change does not seem to be in the wind anytime soon.

It is sobering to note that, according to statistics, approximately half of relatives investigated for placements are ultimately rejected.

Read more in this New York Times article: Waits Plague Transfers of Children to Relatives’ Care.

Child support arrearages in Australia top $1 billion. And the arrearages are growing at the alarming rate of $50 million a year.

In a desperate effort to stem the tide, Australia is going to take a closer look at separated parents suspected of understating their income information.

Private investigators will perform visual surveillance of such parents for a year.

Both parents will also have to produce tax returns to child support enforcement personnel.

And the child support enforcement agency has partnered with a private company to seize and sell a parent’s assets, such as a car or home, to collect arrearages.

After a year, the program will be evaluated based upon its impact on collections.

If it works, who knows where else the program might be adapted and implemented? And what will be next?

The mere thought might have a positive impact on child support collections all over the world.

Read more in

• this Sydney Morning Herald article: Child-support cheats face surveillance
• this Canberra Times article: Child support crackdown:detectives to spy on cheats
• this Syndey Morning Herald article: Private eyes spy on defaulting parents
• this Fairfax Age article: New measures to target shifty parents

Seven year old Florida girl. Father and Mother were never married, didn’t even date.

Since girl’s birth, Father and Mother have taken turns reporting one another to social services and seeking restraining orders against each other.

Each parent has refused to return the child after timesharing with her.

Both parents have tried to inject others into the middle of their battle, including the girl’s preschool.

The Court file was stuffed with hundreds of pages. Then things really got going.

The Mother reportedly withheld visitation one time too many – and was threatened by a judge with incarceration if she pulled that one more time.

And then the girl turned up for visitation with her Father with bruises on her face.

One of the Mother’s boyfriends subsequently pleaded no contest to the charge of battery on the girl. He was sentenced only to probation, but was ordered not to have any further contact with the girl.

Yet the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) kept returning the girl from her Father to her Mother. Despite cases like this until that point, Florida’s custody laws are gender-neutral; the law does not favor either parent based solely on their sex.

Then things really escalated in the case. The Mother reportedly accused the Father of sexually abusing the girl.

At which point DCF instituted dependency proceedings, to terminate the Father’s parental rights permanently.

The Court appointed a guardian ad litem (lay advocate)(“GAL”) for the girl in the case. Interestingly, the GAL did not buy the Mother’s version of events.

But still DCF and the Mother proceeded to trial. But the Mother changed her testimony mid-stream.

In the end, the Court did not terminate the Father’s parental rights. Probably not so surprising.

But what happened next was …

In a hearing on whether to terminate the Father’s parental rights, the Court swapped the stakes and awarded the Father primary residential custody of the girl! Over DCF’s objections.

Further, the Court ordered the Mother to undergo counseling and awarded her only supervised visitation with the girl.

It turns out that the abuse allegations were inspired by the Father’s application of medicine for the girl’s recurring urinary tract infections.

The Father’s attorney criticized DCF for not doing a thorough investigation into the allegations in the first place. According to him, the girl was coached, later recanted and was then scolded for recanting.

The girl has been living with her Father and his wife over a year now. She is reportedly thriving there.

The Mother has not seen the girl since the Court’s ruling – although Father has reportedly tried to facilitate same.

Mother filed an appeal of the ruling, but it was dismissed. Mother was not represented by counsel at the hearing, because she intended it to be “her hearing”, to terminate Father’s parental rights.

Her appeal was based on the premise that she should have been afforded the opportunity to retain counsel when the hearing morphed into Father’s modification of custody hearing.

But, when you play with fire, you have to expect that you may get burned …

Meanwhile, the Father plans to sue DCF for its negligence, impliedly arising from bias against fathers. He has since become a fathers’ rights advocate.

Dads can win custody of kids, sometimes even when they really don’t go looking for it.

Read more in this Lakeland Ledger article: Custody Case Opens a Window on Family Court.

Psychologists believe that birth order of both spouses plays a significant role in the success of a marriage.

The best marriages are believed to be between oldest sisters and youngest brothers. Why?

Because, in a nutshell, oldest sisters are accustomed to being mommies and youngest brothers are accustomed to being babied. Such matches are made in heaven.

On the other hand, firstborn children tend to be dominant. Pairing them up is virtually a recipe for disaster. There will be constant competition and strife, which may eventually lead to divorce.

Similarly, only children are all used to being the center of attention. Again, attempting to mate such competitive spirits in a successful marriage is likely doomed to fail.

While psychologists admit that birth order shouldn’t conclusively decide whether to proceed with a particular union, they suggest that intendeds analyze their respective birth orders and the implications of same before embarking on marriage.

While perhaps lacking in romance, this perspective gives prospective life partners a barometer against which to judge the likelihood that their proposed match will last until death do they part.

Not to mention the dating advice it provides for some: if you want to avoid divorce, psychologists recommend that oldest sisters should set their sights on youngest brothers and youngest brothers should court oldest sisters.

As the song says, “what’s love got to do with it?”

Read more in this San Luis Obispo Tribune article: Birth order can indicate whether your marriage will work out — or not.