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Several years ago, when I was working in a national legal services office that did research, consultations, and training in family law, it came to my attention that in custody cases involving domestic violence, custody was often being awarded to the abuser. Then, when I started actually representing low-income individuals in divorce and other family law cases, I got several battered women clients who had lost custody to their abusers. After investigation, it became apparent that the reason they lost custody was that the court-appointed child custody evaluators had recommended custody to the abusers, and the courts followed the recommendations. The forensic evaluators seemed to know little about domestic violence, and they paid virtually no attention to it when they conducted their evaluations. For example, some evaluators held joint meetings with the battered woman and her abuser, which further traumatized the woman. Many evaluators misdiagnosed battered women as having serious psychopathology, when the women were simply showing symptoms of the trauma they suffered at the hands of their abusers.
Rulings of importance to you and your practice.
A special panel appointed by the New York State Bar Association is proposing that the organization support gay marriage legislation. The Special Committee to Study Issues Affecting Same Sex Couples has come to the conclusion that New York's legislature should enact laws to put gay couples on a more equal footing with straight couples. The only question is, how equal?
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The increase in value of a titled spouse's separate property is subject to equitable distribution as marital property "to the extent that such appreciation is due in part to the contributions or efforts of the other spouse." D.R.L. ' 236 (B)(1)(d)(3). The Court of Appeals has repeatedly determined that a broad interpretation be given to this exclusion so as to favor the inclusion of such appreciation as marital property: "We hold that under the Equitable Distribution Law an increase in the value of separate property of one spouse, occurring during the marriage and prior to the commencement of matrimonial proceedings, which is due in part to the indirect contributions or efforts of the other spouse as homemaker and parent, should be considered marital property.
It is quickly becoming a distant memory when standard visitation for a non-residential parent -- the parent who does not have primary physical custody of the child -- has one dinner during the week and alternate weekends from Friday evening to Sunday evening. We are living in an era where many parents are willing and able to reduce or arrange their work commitments in order to free up more time to devote to their children. And those parents are increasingly rejecting the second-class status of visiting parent with an ephemeral connection to the children, instead desiring to create a second home for themselves and their children. This mindset compels the matrimonial lawyer to be more creative in structuring physical custody or, the currently preferred term, "parental access."
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In the absence of language to the contrary, a real estate broker in New York becomes entitled to a commission when the broker produces a purchaser who is ready, willing, and able to consummate the sale. That is, if the seller changes its mind, or proves unable to deliver title, the seller remains liable for the broker's commission. Dispute about whether broker has procured a ready, willing, and able buyer has generated considerable litigation, but those disputes are not the subject of this article. Instead, this article focuses on the import of "language to the contrary" -- language that purports to alter the common law obligation of the seller to the broker.
