The impact of realistic estrangement on child custody matters
¿Quién fue "la mujer del César"?
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 7 - Invisible Scars: The Impact of Coercive Control on Children
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 6 - Reshaping Your Legacy: Estate Planning After Your Divorce
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 5 - Parallel Proceedings: The Intersection of Criminal Law and Family Law
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 4 - Splitting Costs: Forensic Accounting in Divorce
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 2 - Mortgage Mastery: Charting a Financial Course Post-Divorce
Life After Love Gone Wrong Podcast: Season 3, Episode 1 - The Truth Behind Coercive Control
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 8 - Narcissism and Parental Alienation Talk
Let's Talk About the Anatomy of a Prenuptial Agreement
Let's Talk About Easy Divorces
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 7 - Custody Evaluation Talk
Once Removed Episode 12: SLATs and the Case of McKim vs. McKim
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 6 - “Let’s Gett Serious” Talk
Let's Talk Your Fault or Mine: The Process of No-Fault Divorce
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 5 - Matchmaking Talk
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 4 - Financial Talk
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 3 - Intimacy Talk
Jewish Divorce Talk: Episode 2 - Sexual Abuse Prevention Talk
Let's Talk About Taxes and Divorce
Married couples often have wills naming one another as their primary beneficiary. People also often name their spouse as beneficiary of retirement accounts and life insurance policies. Upon commencing a divorce action,...more
As a bit of background, there is a distinction between probate assets and non-probate assets. Probate assets are distributed according to your will during a probate administration whereas non-probate assets are distributed...more
During the divorce process, one often overlooked area is updating your estate plan. Divorce can impact beneficiary designations on life insurance policies, retirement accounts, and other assets and can also have tax...more
In the recent case of Schaddelee as Cotrustee of Ronald Schaddelee Irrevocable Trust v. Deleon as Cotrustee of Ronald Schaddelee Irrevocable Trust, 2023 WL 4143639 (Mich Ct App Jun 22, 2023) (unpublished), the Michigan Court...more
Perhaps you drafted your will years ago and it references many of your existing assets, including retirement plan accounts and life insurance policies. But you also have paperwork on file with the applicable financial...more
An important change to the Divorce Code will have a significant impact on contractual beneficiary designations effective May 2, 2023. Section 3323 has been amended to add subparagraph (b.1) which provides in part, “[a]n order...more
Those of us from large firms sometimes read opinions where solo practitioners take a shot at an issue and force us to take notice. The facts in this Bucks County case litigated by a solo practitioner against a two lawyer firm...more
It depends on what was put into writing – or not! On January 10, 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled that where a former husband failed to change the beneficiary designation on his life insurance...more
Yesterday, I blogged on the S.W. v. G.M. case in a post entitled More from the Appellate Division on Lifestyle, Foulas and the Concept of Income Equalization. In that blog, I noted that the S.W. court also addressed the...more
You have planned your life carefully. With your spouse you have drawn up a will and established trusts to organize your estate after your deaths. You have made decisions about the guardianship of your children should anything...more
It’s advisable to review and update your estate plan with any change in personal circumstances, financial circumstances, changes in the law, or just the passage of an extended time. But if you’re in the midst of a divorce, or...more
Why do estate planning documents need to be updated when a couple is getting divorced? This simple story illustrates one of the key reasons. An Arizona couple had been married for several years and during their marriage had...more
I was asked recently by a financial advisor in New York, to review and comment on a chart he had put together which was designed to help newly-divorced people in get back on their feet. The draft document I received covered...more
Most plan administrators are familiar with a qualified domestic relations order or “QDRO,” which is used to split retirement plan benefits between a plan participant and an alternate payee, such as an ex-spouse or minor...more
With wedding season just around the corner, here is a primer on what a pre-nuptial agreement can and cannot do for you...more
Divorce attorneys saw a wave of divorces last year due to the changes in the tax laws that took effect on January 1, 2019. If you were one of the masses whose divorce was finalized in 2018, now is the time to revise your...more
An estate planning rule of thumb is to review (and, if necessary, revise) one’s estate plan in light of major life events. Such events include a marriage, birth of a child and a divorce. A second marriage also calls for an...more
December Interest Rates for GRATs, Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts, Intra-Family Loans and Split Interest Charitable Trusts - Important federal interest rates continue to rise. The December applicable federal rate...more
While in the process of divorcing, your attorney will remind you that you cannot change beneficiary designations on your accounts until the divorce is finalized. It is not uncommon to want to put the divorce out of your...more
Your ex-spouse may take under your life insurance policy if you do not change your beneficiaries and there’s nothing a California probate court can do about it. So ruled the Court of Appeal last month in Estate of Post...more
In Sveen v. Melin (No. 16-1432, filed June 11, 2018) (“Sveen”), the United States Supreme Court held that a statute which automatically revoked life insurance beneficiary designations following the policyholder’s divorce did...more
The United States Constitution provides that “[n]o state shall … pass any … Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” (U.S. Constit., Art. I, § 10.) Alongside state constitutional guarantees, the federal Contracts Clause...more
After a decades-long drought, the Supreme Court recently decided a case involving the Contracts Clause of the Constitution. You might not recall that provision because it is so rarely invoked in modern-day litigation (due to...more
The Supreme Court of the United States issued four decisions today: China Agritech, Inc. v. Resh, No. 17-432: In American Pipe & Constr. Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974) and subsequent decisions, the Court has held that...more
On June 11, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Sveen v. Melin, No. 16-1432, holding that the retroactive application of a Minnesota statute that revokes spousal beneficiary designations in insurance policies...more