The 3 Different Types of Memphis Divorce Lawyers
September 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment
My friend, and fellow divorce lawyer Michael Sherman who practices law in Alabama (his blog can be found at www.alabamafamilylawblog.com), had an interesting post a few days ago concerning the different types of lawyers you see in family law. I’ve taken his idea and decided to post about these types of divorce lawyers on the Memphis Divorce blog here.
The first type of divorce lawyer you have in Memphis is the Lamb. The Lamb is the kind of lawyer who doesn’t want to offend anyone or rock the boat too hard. He or she will usually bend over backwards to make sure that confrontation is avoided at all costs. Unfortunately avoiding confrontation “at all costs” usually means that his or her client gives up more than they should in their divorce or custody case. The Lamb will usually tell there clients to sign off on the first offer they see. He or she also will try to stay as far away from the courtroom as possible.
The next type of divorce attorney is the Pit Bull. We’ve all heard about these divorce lawyers. They’re the nasty and vicious sorts who will do anything to win a case. They often times don’t worry about what’s best for the parties, but instead only want to devastate the opposition.
The Pit Bull is the type of Memphis divorce lawyer who can’t stand to settle a case. Instead they’ll do anything and everything to avoid settlement and to go to court. When people say they want a mean SOB to represent them this is the guy or gal who they’re talking about. The Pit Bull comes with a cost though, both figuratively and literally.
Unfortunately being a Pit Bull is not best for their clients. If you know anything about Pit Bulls you know that they are great at causing damage to whoever their up againt but this usually comes at a great loss to their own health. They often go so far in trying to hurt others that they cause irreparable damage to themselves. The Pit Bull attorney’s attacks usually end up hurting their own clients by racking up enormous client fees and getting nowhere in negotiations. Usually the Pit Bull will spend tens of thousands of their clients dollars only to end up with the same outcome that would have been had if they had been willing to work cordially with their opposing counsel.
The Pit Bull is aggressive just for the sake of being aggressive and not for the benefit of actually helping their client.
Often people going through divorce will think they need an aggressive lawyer to represent them in their divorce. They are wrong. What they need is a lawyer who is assertive. There is a difference. It is the difference between the Pit Bull and the third type of Memphis divorce lawyer, the Fox.
Our third type of lawyer, The Fox is wise and cunning. He sees the big picture. The fox is assertive when he needs to be, compromising when it benefits his clients’ long-term best interests, and always aware of the many different consequences his actions have on his clients. He stands on principle. Yet, he is a strong advocate for his client when it promotes his client’s long-term best interests. He recognizes that reaching a fair settlement is always preferable to trying the case and leaving it up to the judge. Yet, he also knows that if a fair settlement is not forthcoming, then he must be willing and able to prepare to effectively litigate the case in court.
When choosing a divorce lawyer, you should avoid the lamb and the pit bull at all costs. Instead, find yourself a fox.
Money and Divorce for Women
September 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment
My friend and fellow lawyer, Michael Sherman, recently posted an interesting article on his blog, AlabamaFamilyLawBlog, concerning how divorce affects women and their finances. And although the article wasn’t specifically written about the Memphis Divorces it’s a very intersting article. Any woman who is considering a divorce should read and think about the consequences.
According to recent statistics, U.S. divorce rates have decreased in recent years after a peak in the 1970s, but still remain fairly high. In addition to being an emotional breakup, divorce can bring about serious financial issues that can have long-term consequences on the economic stability of a woman.
According to recent studies, a woman’s standard of living decreases at least 30 percent after divorce, which means getting a grip on finances both during and after divorce is crucial for surviving intact.
- Don’t Bury Your Head in the Sand
All women-especially divorcées-need to overcome their aversion to money issues, educate themselves and set financial goals. Part of the reason why divorce hits women so hard financially is due to most of them being reliant on their husbands to take care of household financials while married and then becoming shell-shocked having to manage their own situation on their own.
Self-sufficiency is crucial, and these tips can help.
- Study Your Finances
According to investment advisor Lisa Fox, women often have no idea what they have financially. She says that during an after a divorce, they should be aware of all investments and read each financial statement, investigating anything they are unsure of. Fox also suggests keeping track of finances by copying all important documents.
Knowing what you have puts you in a better position for negotiation during divorce.
- Create a Budget
Draw up a post-divorce budget while in negotiations in order to provide yourself with a snapshot of the type of settlement you’ll need, keeping in mind that downsizing may be required for your lifestyle after divorce.
- Money: Not Just a Man’s Issue
Because women tend to live longer, earn less money during their lifetimes, and not be prone to investing, they have different financial needs than men. This makes getting a handle on financial issues is important, and should be done so sooner than later.
Divorce is never easy, but through common sense and financial responsibility, making the transition can be made easier.
Divorce Proofing Your Relationship - The “Three P’s”
August 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment
As divorce lawyers serving Memphis and North Mississippi, unfortunately we see relationships end for many different reasons. Often times the saddest part about this is that these divorces could have been avoided if the couples would have taken part in one of the “Three P’s”.
Dawn Elaine Bowie over at the Maryland Father’s Rights Blog had an interesting post addressing these issues and the “Three P’s”, and I’m including her post below.
“The right to marry is a fundamental human right protected by the United States Constitution and the constitutions of most states. With divorce rates at between 50% and 60%, and the human misery I routinely see as part of my daily work, it’s very easy to be seduced by the idea that if we could just force people to use some common sense we could reduce some of the misery.
On the one hand, I wish it was possible to require folks to go to premarital counseling before they married. Or pass a test before they could procreate. But not only does that kind of government intervention run afoul of the Constitution, it isn’t realistic. Human behavior can’t be legislated in, or out, of existence.
There is no foolproof way to keep a second, third or subsequent marriage from failing. But there are real, common-sense ways to increase your odds for success.
If you need help with a premarital agreement, and you live in Maryland, let me know. I’d far rather get to know you that way, than through representing you in divorce litigation.
Remember the Three P’s:
• Patience - Take plenty of time to get to know your partner before you seal the deal.
• Prenuptial Agreement - Get one, preferably one that covers more than just money and property.
• Premarital Counseling - Spend a little money now and increase your chances of avoiding the big money and the bigger heartache later!”
The original post can be found on the Maryland Father’s Rights blog here.
Remember, it’s always best to try to make the marriage work. However, for many people this just simply isn’t an option. If you and your spouse can no longer stay married and need a divorce, either in Memphis or North Mississippi, call the us at 901-754-1340 or email us at contact@lawferrell.com and we’d be happy to help guide you.
What do Courts Look at in a Custody Dispute III
July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The third installment on our series we examine how courts consider either parents practical abilitities to care for a child by considering the capacity, age, and physical and mental health of the prospecitve caregiver.
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5. Capacity
This is generally a court’s exploration of employment responsibilities and the compatibility with that parents work requirements and their ability to provide childcare. It is a strictly time based inquiry. The parent that can spend the most time with the child is supported by this factor. Relevant issues include the ability to work from home, take the child to work, pick the child up from school, be home during the summer break, and the proximity of the parent’s worksite to the child.
6. Age, Physical and Mental Health of the Parents
Physical disability will only matter if it impairs a parent’s ability to care for a child. Evidence of serious mental or emotional illness may support a denial of custody in severe cases. In less severe cases the inquiry goes yet again into the stability of the home life provided for the child. Past mental or emotional problems will not bar custody without a showing that they affect the current home environment. Abuse of Drugs, prescription drugs, and alcohol may cause a parent’s mental health to be questioned; especially when backed up by DUI or other convictions. A parent’s use of alcohol without abuse will not adversely affect the parent. Age is rarely discussed and is not a prime consideration unless the age is so advanced it will impair the ability to raise a child.
What do Courts Look at in a Custody Dispute II?
July 2, 2008 | 2 Comments
Today we continue examining what factors Judges consider when ruling on a custody dispute.
3. Continuing Care of the Child
The idea of continuing care has taken the same legal status that the maternal preference used to have. Courts look here to the day to day activities to determine which parent provided care. The inquiry includes a question of who bathed, dressed, put to bed, prepared meals, arranged babysitters and extracurricular activities, bought clothing and other items, dealt with medical care, read to, played with and made educational arrangements for the child. While not stated in statute or in case law this is the most heavily weighted factor in Mississippi. Courts rely heavily on this factor, especially when awarding custody to the father. Courts have awarded custody based on this factor in spite of compelling moral factors that may mitigate against a custody award (we will address these later) such as bigamy or adultery. Courts have awarded custody to a mother with severe emotional problems on the policy of continuity of care for the child. Continuity of care, like any of the factors, is subordinated to strong parenting skills and a stable environment. Claiming continuity of care when a third party (here the ex-husbands parents) did a majority of the work is insufficient. Courts will look at continuity of care before the separation period and during all other periods of custody.
4. Parenting Skills
Courts also look to more physical activities and daily routines to evaluate each parent’s parenting skills and determine each parent’s ability to provide physical care, support, discipline and guidance, under the totality of the circumstances. Courts inquire as to who met personal hygiene and medical needs, whether the parent orchestrated appropriate social engagement and extracurricular activities, whether the parent spent free time with the child. Courts have also awarded custody based on improved behavior and school attendance while in the custody of one parent; and on one parent’s pursuit of adequate counseling and other educational needs. Factors indicative of poor parenting skills include failure to supervise or prevent harm, failure to make ones home safe, exposure of the child to parental disputes, harassment of the other parent, voluntary or forced relinquishment of rights concerning other children, or disobedience of any custody orders. Courts have denied custody based on a finding of inability to take personal responsibility for ones actions.
What do Judges Look at In a Custody Dispute ?
June 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
There are lots of myths and advice in circulation pertaining to divorce. What you can or cannot do, what a friend might say or might have just heard. Often such conflicting information can add more stress, uncertainty, and even cause parties with good intentions to make serious mistakes. No publication can take the place of an individual consultation with your attorney, but a knowledge of what courts consider in a Mississippi or Memphis divorce may clear up some confusion and prepare you to meet with your attorney. This week we will explore what judges consider and do not consider when determining disputed custody.
The overarching theme of all of Mississippi custody law is to determine what is in the best interest of the child. If Joint custody is requested a judge will automatically assume joint custody is in the best interests of the child. If there is a dispute over custody Judges will look at 12 areas (known in Mississippi as the albright factors) to determine what type of placement is in the child’s best interest.
1. The Age of the Child
Mississippi courts are no longer allowed to base custody decisions solely on the idea that the child is of tender years and the mother is best equipped to nurture a child. But, the judge is still free to indulge a general presumption that a mother is best suited to raise a young child. As a general rule a fit mother who has been the child’s primary caretaker is likely to win custody based on that factor and on the fact that the mother was the primary caregiver (we will look at that factor later). But this presumption applies only to very young children. When a child can be cared for equally by either parent then that factor is no longer applicable. In Mississippi possibly children as young as four years of age have been ajudged to be capable of being cared for by wither the Mother or the Father. Recently there has been a trend of growing judicial acceptance of fathers as primary care givers. Fathers who have been the primary care giver to the child have also won exclusively on those grounds.
2. The Sex of the Child
Older children may be adjudged to do better when in custody with the same-sex parent based on the importance of a strong gender role model; this is especially prevalent in boys. This could be a supporting issue for the judicial opinion but the most important factor to a judge will be to find the prior caretaker, with the strongest parenting skills who can provide a stable home environment. An example of the Court not taking this factor to extremes would be a recent Mississippi case where the father was awarded sole custody of his two daughters because he had superior parenting skills and provided a more stable home environment.
These two factors displace a lot of common myths about child custody. There are no presumptions that cannot be overturned with facts about what is in the best interest of the child. Tomorrow we will further explore what factors courts consider when awarding custody. If you are currently in, or may be in a custody suit, please contact our Memphis Divorce and Family Lawyers for a consultation.
Three Skills Needed to Rebuild After Divorce
June 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment
So you’ve worked with your Memphis divorce lawyer through the divorce process. You understand how to deal with the legal and financial issues, but you probably still don’t know how to deal with the emotional issues.
Post divorce emotions can range from feelings of confusion, self-doubt, anger, ambivalence and, in some cases shear relief. Life as you knew it is over and now you have the job of building a new life. This takes work, both external and internal work.
Externally, you need to find a new home, new friends, a new job, and learn to live life as a single person or single parent.
Internally, you have to shed your attachments to your ex and your marriage, working through issues with anger, dependency, security, trust, fear and more.
Whatever you are dealing with either externally or internally, you need to develop certain skills to help you in your transition to a new life.
Below are three skills that will help you rebuild after a time of adversity:
- Openness: Be willing to share what you are feeling and experiencing emotionally with others. If talking through our feelings didn’t help the healing process there would not be so many therapists in business. Stay open and honest with friends and family. Sharing details of your emotions promotes healing.
- Action: Moving forward with your life means having a willingness to take action. On days you would rather pull the covers over your head, force yourself out of bed. Put one foot in front of the other because any movement is forward movement and it is in a forward direction you want to move. Get up, get going and get on with your life. Start with baby steps and soon you will be moving forward by leaps and bounds.
- Belief: There is no healing without the belief that you can heal. Belief in ourselves and our ability to weather any storm is our greatest tool when it comes to moving through a time of adversity. Be patient, kind and loving with yourself. Push any self-doubt you have aside and believe in your own competence. If the odds seem against you, if you feel you aren’t going to make it, go against the odds. Develop discipline, push all negative self-talk out of your head and believe that you can become whom you want and live the life you desire.
Sharpen your new skills; make them a part of your daily life. Openness, action and belief in yourself will never fail to bring you through adversity in your life. One day you will look back and realize that all the sorrow and challenge you experienced during your divorce gave way to some of your greatest accomplishment.
Source: About Divorce
Legal Blog
May 30, 2008 | 3 Comments
This is a little off topic from my regular posts but I thought I’d mention that I’ve added f/k/a to my blogroll. They’ve got an interesting take and look at the legal world.
Check out there latest post here.
Should You Represent Yourself in Your Memphis Divorce?
May 30, 2008 | 1 Comment
The following post was originally written by Houston divorce attorney Scott Morgan.
Click Here to visit his Houston Divorce Blog.
In recent years I have noticed an ever increasing number of pro se litigants (people who represent themselves) at the family law courthouse. I mentioned this to a judge who estimated that 50% of her docket was comprised of pro se cases.
For several years now the basement of the Family Law Center has been occupied by a staff member of the Houston Volunteer Lawyers whose basic job is to assist the pro se litigants with the numerous document errors that are caught by the judges during what are supposed to be quick, easy uncontested prove up hearings.
It is my understanding that most of these people are using divorce form websites. They pay approximately $200 or so for the fill-in-the-blank divorce forms that are supposed to be acceptable in their jurisdiction.
Among the many problems of a divorce form website is the obvious difficulty in creating documents that are effective and current in all 50 states, not to mention addressing the various peculiarities of individual counties and individual judges. The fact that judges can and usually do find numerous errors in the documents during a very brief scanning at the prove up hearing is evidence of just how bad a job these form websites do.
My basic view on representing yourself is this: if you have no assets, no liabilities, no children, and you are just unable to financially afford a lawyer, then go ahead take a stab at representing yourself. However, for most people their divorce case will be the most significant financial and legal event of their life and it needs to be handled correctly. If it is not handled correctly the hidden error is likely to reveal itself at some later date.
Here is an example. Early in my career I was visited by a lady who had been divorced several years prior. Her ex-husband was now retired from the military and receiving his pension. During the divorce neither party had been represented by an attorney and the husband had handled the paperwork. She admitted to me that at the time she would have signed any document he asked her to and given him anything he wanted. She just wanted out of the marriage, an attitude shared by many going through divorce who later regret it.
Now she wondered if she had any right to a portion of his pension, since they had been married for about 15 of his 20 years of military service. I expected to find in the Decree the standard boilerplate language awarding all of retirement assets to the party in whose name it was held.
To my amazement the Decree was silent on the issue of retirement benefits division. It simply did not address that asset. You can guess the rest of the story. I filed a petition to divide undivided property and within a relatively short time she was receiving nearly $1000 a month out of husband’s pension.
In this case the end result was a just one and I was happy to help her achieve it. But you can bet her ex-husband felt otherwise. He could have easily avoided the result by not being so cheap and hiring a lawyer. Even the most mediocre of family law attorneys would not have made that mistake. Over the course of his life that error could end up costing him $100,000, $200,000, or more.
While this might seem like a dramatic example of a pro se error, I can give you many, many more just from the ones I have personally seen. The errors involve child support, visitation, conservatorship, alimony, property division, etc., you name it.
The bottom line is that your divorce case is far too significant and important to just hope you get it right. You need to be certain that it is handled correctly and you can only do this by hiring a quality divorce lawyer.
Selecting the Right Memphis or Mississippi Divorce Attorney
May 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Going through a divorce will be one of the most difficult undertakings in your life. So selecting the right divorce lawyer in Memphis or Desoto County to represent you is a very important decision. The following are a few criteria for use in helping to decide on the right divorce attorney.Experience
Any divorce lawyer you consider should have significant experience handling cases in your geographical area. A divorce lawyer who is experienced in your county will be familiar with the tendencies of that county’s judges and will be able to use this knowledge to your advantage. Additionally, that lawyer should practice primarily (preferably, exclusively) as a family law attorney. Frequently people will hire someone whose practice is mostly in another area of the law, thinking that any lawyer will do. However, family law is extremely specialized and in most states the statutes are modified frequently. It is a field that requires a constant study and a certain skill set in order to best represent a client.
Past Client Testimonials
Probably the best way to determine which lawyer is right for your is to hear what past clients have to say about the lawyer. While divorce can often be unpleasant, some divorce attorneys have more success at satisfying their clients. If you do not personally know someone who has been a client of a particular lawyer, you should consider asking for client testimonials. A good lawyer should have at least a few former clients who are willing to vouch for him or her.
Accessible
One of the most common complaints made by clients who become dissatisfied with their divorce attorney is that they were unable to communicate with the lawyer. It is very important that your divorce lawyer or someone on the staff be accessible and prompt in responding to your phone calls, emails, and requests for meetings. While you can ask about the office policy, this is another area where you can best evaluate by hearing what past clients have to say.
Fees
It is extremely important that you have a frank discussion with the lawyer about fees and what you can expect. Typically, the divorce lawyer will require the payment of a substantial retainer up front, against which that lawyer’s hourly rate and expenses will be charged. You should find out what the hourly rate is, how much the retainer will be, whether any portion of the retainer is refundable if it is not fully used, and how frequently you will receive invoices detailing the hourly charges and expenses. You should also find out how detailed and clear the invoices will be. Again, this is an area where you can get excellent information from past clients.
Are You Comfortable with the Lawyer?
While all the other issues are very important, there is one ultimate question you should ask yourself before hiring your divorce lawyer: are you comfortable with that lawyer and are you confident in his or her abilities? If the answer is anything other than a resounding “yes, absolutely” you should keep looking. Your case is too important to hire someone who does not inspire your confidence.
