Posted on August 07, 2015 in Child Custody

Sometimes, the court requires parents and their children to undergo psychological evaluations to determine an appropriate custody arrangement. For many people, the idea of having to be psychologically analyzed can be uncomfortable. You might feel like a psychological evaluation is an invasion of your privacy or an attempt to paint you as an unfit parent. But this is not the case. Psychological evaluations are an important part of developing a full portrait of a family to determine each member's relationship to one another and how the parents and children relate to and work with each other. A psychological evaluation is not an attempt to vilify you or your spouse – it is a tool that the court uses to measure each household's ability to provide for the child.

During your psychological evaluation, the most important things that you can do are relax and cooperate with the individual conducting the evaluation. Usually, a psychological evaluation takes place over multiple meetings, one or more of which occur in the parent's home.

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 Posted on August 06, 2015 in Child Custody

Sole custody of your child means that you alone are responsible for his or her well being. There are two types of custody that you can have of your child: physical and legal.

Physical custody refers to where the child lives – if you have sole physical custody of your child, he or she lives in your home full-time rather than spending an allotted amount of time in his or her other parent's home each week or month. Legal custody refers to the right to make financial, medical, and lifestyle decisions for your child. These decisions include your child's healthcare and the religion in which he or she is raised.

As a parent, it is possible to have sole physical custody and joint legal custody, or any other combination of sole and shared custody with your child's other parent. When you have sole physical and legal custody of your child, you are responsible for meeting all of his or her needs. Your former partner may have visitation with the child, which is an amount of time set aside each week, month, or on another timetable for them to spend together.

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 Posted on July 29, 2015 in Child Custody

Parental abduction, also sometimes known as a family abduction, is any taking of a child by his or her parent that violates the parent's custody order. Surprisingly, this type of abduction is actually more common than abduction by strangers.

Parental abduction is a serious crime. A parent who takes their child or keeps him or her in excess of his or her allotted parenting time can face fines, probation, or even jail time if he or she is convicted of parental abduction. To avoid this type of charge, talk to your spouse about your plans regarding your child. If you want to take him or her for extra time, work this out beforehand and involve your attorney if necessary, just so it is on record.

Parental Abduction Defined

In the Illinois Criminal Code, parental abduction is defined as any circumstance where one of the following occurs:

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 Posted on July 24, 2015 in Child Custody

When the court initially determines your child custody order, it does so with what it feels are your child's best interests in mind as specified in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. These interests include educational resources, a stable household with adequate space for the child to live, his or her relationship with each family member, and any personal needs your child has. However, nothing in life is set in stone. As your child matures, his or her needs will change. Sometimes, this results in a child custody arrangement that is no longer appropriate for him or her and could potentially harm his or her relationship with each parent.

Sometimes, a change in a custody order is because of significantly changed circumstances, like a parent losing his or her home and having to move into a small apartment. Other times, it is because of an adolescent's desire to live with the other parent or see him or her more frequently. In any case, there are certain protocols that every family with a custody arrangement in place must take to change the custody schedule.

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 Posted on July 22, 2015 in Domestic Violence

You should always be able to feel safe in your home. Your home is your sanctuary; the place where you can go to escape from the trials of the world. But if you are living with an abusive partner, your home can be dangerous for you and your children. If you are in immediate danger of any type of domestic violence or truly believe you could be, get out of the home now. You can come back for your things later and determine the ownership of the home in divorce court, but when the threat of abuse is imminent, you need to put your safety first. Do this by getting out of the home and seeking an Order of Protection against your spouse.

Two Ways to Eject an Abusive Spouse from the Home

If you need to stay in your marital home, you can have your spouse legally removed from the household. You cannot remove him or her from the house without legal intervention. There are two ways to accomplish this.

The first is to seek an Order of Protection against him or her. When you have an Order of Protection in place, your spouse is not permitted to contact you or come within a specified number of feet of you. An Order of Protection comes from the court, and the judge who signs the order must determine that your spouse's presence in the home is a threat to your safety or your child's to bar him or her from the house.

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 Posted on July 17, 2015 in Domestic Violence

Domestic violence can seem simple. When one spouse physically abuses his or her partner, kicking, punching, and berating him or her, that spouse is an abuser. But can you recognize the other signs of domestic violence? More importantly, would you be able to recognize them if you, yourself, were a victim of domestic violence and do you know what to do if you are a victim?

Consider the most important signs of domestic violence to determine if you are familiar with them or you have seen them happening in your relationship. If you are a victim, get out of your home as soon as you can. Illinois has a network of domestic violence shelters where you can go to be safe from your abusive spouse. Once you are out of the home, your next step is to seek legal action to obtain an Order of Protection and/or file for divorce.

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 Posted on July 15, 2015 in Divorce

For thousands couples throughout the United States, pets are members of the family. For these couples, the pet's custody can be a prominent issue during their divorce.

In Illinois, pets are considered to be personal property. This means that they are divided among divorcing couples in the same way that property such as cars, household decor, and recreational items are divided – according to their monetary value. In Illinois, each partner receives a portion of the couple's shared property according to his or her contribution to the marriage's shared property value and his or her economic needs following the divorce. This is known as equitable distribution and is outlined in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. If one spouse owned the pet before the marriage began, the pet may be considered to be singly-held property and thus not subject to property division rules.

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 Posted on July 12, 2015 in Divorce

An uncontested divorce is a divorce wherein the spouses agree on all key proponents of their divorce settlement before they file to end their marriage. These proponents include:

• Spousal maintenance;
• The division of their marital property; and
• All other disputes regarding the marriage.

The couple may determine their own child custody agreement, but this is subject to court intervention if the court deems it to not be in the child's best interest. The court has greater influence in determining an appropriate child support amount than it does over determining a child custody agreement.

If you and your spouse have an amicable relationship and have already worked out a mutually-satisfying divorce plan, you might be candidates for an uncontested divorce. By cutting out the lawyer meetings and hearings associated with a traditional, or contested, divorce, you can save yourselves considerable amounts of time and money.

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 Posted on July 12, 2015 in Annulments

A marriage must meet certain requirements to be valid. These requirements, as well as the circumstances under which a marriage may be determined to be invalid, are outlined in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. For example, if a couple married when one of the parties was under the influence of drugs or alcohol or otherwise unable to consent to the marriage, the marriage may not be considered to be valid. Another reason why a marriage might be deemed to be invalid is if one of the parties was already married to another individual when the wedding ceremony was performed or one of the parties somehow lied about his or her identity, causing the other partner to marry him or her under false pretenses. If a minor married without parental consent, that marriage, too, may be deemed to be invalid. When a couple's marriage is invalid, they may end it through a process known as annulment. Getting an annulment is not the same as getting a divorce. When a couple divorces, their legal, valid marriage is dismantled. When a couple gets an annulment, their marriage is wiped from the record as if it had never occurred.

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 Posted on June 26, 2015 in Paternity

If you think you might have a biological child, you need to establish your paternity of that child in order to gain any rights regarding him or her. These rights include the right to seek custody or visitation with your child, the right to seek child support for his or her care, and your obligation to financially support him or her until he or she is an adult. When you establish paternity, you become the child's legal father. This and other laws related to paternity and parents' rights in Illinois are included in the Illinois Parentage Act of 1984.

In Illinois, an alleged father can establish his paternity by signing the child's birth certificate when the child is born. This is accompanied by a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity form, which both parents need to date and sign. A man can also establish paternity through an Order of Paternity or an Administrative Paternity Order, both of which are ordered by the court.

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