LJN Newsletters

A movement by fathers' groups and their current wives to have every state legislature mandate a presumption of 50/50 custody for all children as a starting point in every contested custody case has created a new area of family law. If you inquire about the rationale behind this movement, the groups will respond that they have a constitutional right to raise their children and, further, that this presumption will alleviate all custody problems. Further, they say, the "best interest of the child" standard is bogus and is just used to deprive fit parents of their rights. Other arguments made by these dads include: the criteria used to award custody are unconstitutionally vague; there are no scientific data to support the continued use of the "best interests" standard, and the standards are arbitrarily utilized. If the legislatures would only mandate a presumption of 50/50 custody at the outset, these groups claim, there would be no interparental conflict, no wasting of family resources, and no shattered lives.

The purpose of making payments to a spouse or former spouse as alimony under the Internal Revenue Code (the Code) is so that such payments will be taxable to the payee and deductible to the payor. This article reviews the rules and the pitfalls.

Matrimonial attorneys in California are breathing a sigh of relief. Even though divorce may be the most blood-boiling experience a person can go through, a California appellate court ruled that a client cannot sue his attorney just because the proceedings threw his life into turmoil.

The pendente lite phase of a case and the results of a pendente lite application are critical for setting the tone for the balance of the case, and often affect whatever final decisions or agreements are reached. An inequitable result could seriously compromise one party's case. It is, therefore, essential to provide judges with sound, hard evidence at the pendente lite phase, that will enable them to deal fairly with both sides pending the submission of final proofs.

In January and February's newsletters, we discussed the problems inherent in setting up parental access plans in this era in which parents are increasingly demanding a greater share of parenting time. The two charts below offer more options for allocating time between parents.

Recent rulings of importance to you and your practice.

We live in a mobile society. Parents with a child in common may move from state to state, with or without the child involved in the moves. People with court orders granting custody or access to a child, sometimes including grandparents or siblings who have statutory rights, may not be in the same state as a child. They may need to enforce or modify custodial determinations.

Some New Yorkers have been attempting for years to get same-sex marriage legalized in this state, but the past year has been a true watershed. The latest development, of course, is the February 4 decision in Hernandez v. Robles by Justice Doris Ling-Cohan of State Supreme Court, which held that same-sex couples have the same constitutional right to marry that opposite-sex couples do. It was the first state-level decision in New York in support of gay marriage rights.