Category: General

In the past, divorcing spouses who wanted to transfer retirement plan money using a Qualified Domestic Relations Order (QDRO) faced the prospect of a significant attorney’s fee (typically $500-$1,000 for the QDRO for a defined contribution plan like a 401k plan and $1,000-$2,000 for a defined benefit plan like a pension). Now the Bush Administration (the Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service) has added another cost. As a result of changes in interpretation of federal regulations, employers can now charge participants an allocated cost for processing a QDRO.

I’ve not heard anyone estimate what this fee would likely be. As soon as I have a general idea, I’ll post it here on the blog.

Here’s yet another case of a father who says he shouldn’t have to pay child support because he didn’t intend to father a child. The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled (NE. v. Hedges, Case No. 04a)437p.06, U.S. Ct. Appeals December 20, 2004) that a father must pay child support despite his claim that the mother “fraudulently induced” sexual intercourse. She told him, according to the father, that her birth control pills would work and that there was no way she could get pregnant. Oh come on.

This case is noteworthy not because it breaks new ground but because it doesn’t. This point is well-settled. As the court put it,

. . . there are no judicial decisions recognizing a constitutional right of a man to terminate his duties of support under state law for a child that he has fathered, no matter how removed he may be emotionally from the child. Child support has long been a tax fathers have had to pay in Western civilization.

It’s also noteworthy because, I’m told, the father was a lawyer. Oh well.

Take a look at this topic entitled Can You Really Be Friends After Divorce? and witness the struggle divorced persons feel when they don’t feel the levels of anger against their spouse they read about and hear about in the news.

The (happy) fact is that most people who get divorced don’t spend thousands of dollars on legal fees. They just quietly end their marriage, get through the divorce, and move on with their lives. The culture doesn’t understand this, of course. Adversarial divorce is what the lawyers see. It’s what the judges see. It’s what the reporters see. It’s what the police see. All too often, it’s what the therapists see. So the culture thinks most people who get divorced have a big fight about it.

The culture’s wrong. Most of the divorcing couples I see aren’t busom buddies, and they’re relatively unlikely to be “best friends.” However, by and large, they are able to talk with each other, listen to each other, negotiate with each other, and when it’s needed, help each other.

Parents in England who refuse to let the other parent see their children could face curfews and compulsory community service under proposals the consitutional affairs secretary has proposed. The suggestions come after blistering criticism of the existing family court system and a growing momentum for change fostered by fathers’ rights groups. Here’s a description of the suggested changes and the political turmoil around them from the BBC.

Included in the new plans is an increased emphasis on making voluntary mediation available and making it easier for parents to get access to legal, emotional, and practical advice by telephone and over the Internet. The conservative shadow secretary for the family has already rejected the proposals as “inadequate.”

Is divorce getting easier? This article from AP seems to be saying so in describing the proliferation of sites offering online divorce document preparation. What’s fascinating to me as a divorce lawyer is that my charge for a lawyer-assisted uncontested divorce (complete with personal legal advice and the handling of all filing from complaint to finished Final Judgment of Divorce) is less than most of these web sites are charging. What gives? I’m obviously doing a lousy job of marketing.

Is it getting too easy to get a divorce? People often ask me that. My usual response is to ask them whether they’ve been through a divorce themselves. Most who have can answer this question easily: absolutely not.

By the time people actually make it to my office to file for divorce, they’ve been through unimaginable misery. I don’t know many at all who would say the process is too easy.