Lunch & A Divorce Lawyer LIVE - Divorce Deconstructed: Temporary Issues

THIS MONTH'S TOPIC:

'SURVIVAL....During Your Divorce'

So the average U.S. divorce takes 11 months. Plus, it's longer than that in a large city like Chicago and if there are minor children involved, well, your case is gonna take a WHILE!

This month we discuss how to make sure you're seeing your kids and getting financial support DURING your divorce.

Attorney Peter Olson:

Hello there!

Welcome to Third Thursday Lunch in a Divorce Lawyer, I'm attorney Peter Olsen Chicago Family Law Group.

Thanks for joining me and I hope this can be an informative 20-minute presentation on some issues related to divorce, custody and family law in general; that's my business – that's what we do at Chicago Family Law Group.  We help and support family transformation in legal proceedings and divorce adoption/custody cases. 

So, this month I'm doing another chapter in an ongoing series that is Divorce Deconstructed where I'm really trying to break down different aspects of a divorce case.  Just so you understand what's in play.  If you're a client of ours, if you're a prospective client of ours, if you are just a general public interested, want to basically learn/understand what might be facing you, maybe you have another attorney and maybe you're not really just as informed as you would like to be. 

So, this month Divorce Deconstructed Temporary issues.  So, what does temporary mean when I'm talking about it in case within the divorce context. Temporary simply means while the case is pending in court and while and prior to it being finalized.  So, a court case, let's just say as an example or a general picture, is going to take nine months, maybe two years or somewhere in that picture depending on the issues, particularly if you have children and you've kind of contested issues related to children.  To me, that's often what really drives a case taking quite a while.  If they're no children, you should be able to wrap stuff up faster than that like less than a year. 

So, we're talking about what's the picture on various aspects of your case.  Before that final divorce judgment is entered and during that - let's just say 18-month period while the case is not finalized and it's pending in court.  That's what we're talking about.  And what are we really talking about, we're talking about the same things that are ultimately going to be in that final judgment.  Three chunks I'm going to look at are our financial issues, child related issues and then I'm going to talk a little bit about the kind of possession of a home.  If you share a home with your husband or wife, but that's what we're talking about.

Those three big issues, they're going to be in the final judgment too, but now we're just talking about what's the picture during that 18-month period while a case is in court because it's a long period of time. It's an important first step in a case. I mean it's usually the first thing I'm doing up front.  The case is a petition for temporary acts depending on what's needed in the case to immediately bring some sanity and some structure to a family's situation.

So, these are really important and they're actually also really urgent because they happen right at the start of a case. 

Now, first in terms of deconstructing these temporary issues.  Let me almost use this as sort of a precursor.  Can you avoid this fight entirely?  I just put that out there because we are going to talk about things like temporary attorney’s fees, temporary child support, temporary spouse support.  We're going to talk about temporary custody.  We're going to talk about temporary parenting time.  We're going to talk about possibly needing to structure or get control of a residence.  If you need to get your spouse out of a residence due to an abusing-harassing situation, all those things are really important and that's what I'm going to talk about in the next 10 minutes here on temporary issues.

If possible and sometimes it is, often it's not, but if you can keep these issues out of court, it really will help your overall case go more quickly #1 and secondary it'll keep your time, attorney's fees down things like that.  How do you keep it out of court, you sort of maintain the status quo.  That would be my recommendation.  Maybe there's a falling out between you and husband, you and wife depending on your relationship.

Okay you're living separate and apart and now, things like finances need to be worked out a little bit or parenting time needs to be worked out a little bit or maybe you're still living in the same house but because of some of the conflicts, you're not working together as well or communicating, as well as together anymore.  So, that crops up but sometimes it can be possible where you can sort of keep making sure the bills are being paid, make sure your children are being supported, make sure sort of each parent is having their time with the child because you know it doesn't have to be a big blow up where all these temporary things need to be really in court big time if you can kind of keep the temperature down.

My statement is just sort of maintain the status quo, keep paying the mortgage, and keep paying for groceries. Whoever was sort of paying different household expenses, whose ever income that was coming for prior, just keep doing that.  Maybe if you've separated, have some discussions about what kind of a parenting share plan looks like. 

That's my jumping off point.  Sometimes if the temperature is sort of low and not super crazy conflictual, you can avoid the need to deal with temporary issues within the court case entirely and that can be a great thing, a great time saver, a great money saver.

So, think about if you can do that, think about if you can maintain the status quo and at least sort of have a working relationship with your spouse - even if you're going through a divorce to sort of keep things wise, efficient and just limit the conflict, limit the damage. 

Now, but if you can't, we need to deal with temporary issues while that 18-month period is running in your cases in court.  First, common temporary financial issues, very common one are the first pleadings I'm going to file, is something like petition for interim attorney’s fees to get my client some attorney's fees paid from the other party, petition for temporary child support so mom is getting x dollars from the father and maintenance spousal support if that's applicable.

Those are your financial temporary issues that are very-very frequently the first thing I'm going to file in a case.  Attorney’s fees and spousal support would typically be situations where there's an imbalance of incomes or one person has a lot of control of the financial assets and the other person does not.  Then child support would be pay if you're the parent where the kids are with most of the time, the majority time parent if you will, you're generally going to be entitled the child support, whether be at the end of a case or on a temporary basis.

Those are your three-temporary financial issues; attorney’s fees, child support and maintenance.  I am just thinking of a couple of cases of ours that I've done recently – I filed and our client earned about half of the income of his wife so the first thing I did was petition for temporary spousal support or what we call maintenance and an attorney fee contribution and asked for about $2500, get some fees paid because he was entitled to that then we got him maybe 5-7 hundred dollars a month in temporary spousal support.  And then, child support.  That that one comes up really all the time.

You know, mom has the kids. I just jotted down a couple cases of ours.  Mom has the kids, maybe two or three kids and the last case I'm looking at, here we got her about a thousand dollars, eleven hundred dollars a month in temporary child support.  Again, it's now been running for several months while the case literally as I'm sitting here has not resolved.

So that's your first and very common temporary issue that I'm going to be filing something on, getting attorneys fees, child support, spousal support paid right in that first one to three months of a case, so frankly you can get a good lawyer on your case and then also just so there's not that much of a gap, so your children, your family and yourself are being provided for.

So, those are your temporary financial issues.  Surely, if they're young children, sometimes, you're going to need to deal with things like temporary decision making and generally, more even importantly temporary parenting time.  Now mom and dad are living in separate households, we need to set up a temporary parenting plan because again, it can't be a free-for-all, there can be uncertainty for the sake of the kids if they're going to mom or dad over the weekend or over a certain week.  Again, depending on what side of the case I'm on and depending whether they're in fact our children in any case, I'm filing a petition to set a temporary parenting time schedule.  Again, a very common initial filing in a case so we can get that structure right in that first one to three months of a case just all set.

I even jotted down a case where both of the parents and the children, the entire family was actually still living in the same home while they were going through a divorce but still things were so heated and high conflict that we actually didn't want like parenting time structure while the case was going on, even though they lived together, just so it's like “these days were mom's days, these days were dad's days”.

So temporary matters!  You have financial issues, you have your child related issues, sometimes you have both and that could be temporary parenting time, custody, child support and interim attorney’s fees.  There can be a lot of things lumped into these temporary issues. 

Then the last thing I just jotted down quickly was sometimes you have to deal with possession of a home.  This is a little bit more rare but you know things are - If the environment is such that my mental and physical well-being is an issue.  Let's just say my spouse and my children are just unsafe, occasionally we will get our client exclusive possession of a home while a divorce is pending.

That's a harder needle to thread.  Those first two categories of financial and child related are very common.  Exclusive possession is actually pretty hard to get unless it's really super abusive-harassing and quite honestly, there's a way to do that kind of a divorce case.  There's obviously what's called an “Order of Protection” to where possession of a home is an issue as well.

So, divorce deconstructed temporary issues, those are your big three chunks.  So the financial chunk, the non-financial issues related with your children and then sort of that possession of the home.  Sometimes you can avoid these all together but if you can't, it is important to provide that structure and financial support and it's important to do it right away to just get it done.  So now basically you can just kind of breathe and relax; structure and support is in place and then you sort of let the rest of the case plot along for a year, year and a half until it's over, but those are your common temporary issues in a divorce.

So, I'm going to leave it there. Thank you for joining me this Thursday again. I'm attorney Peter Olson, Chicago Family Law Group. We are at www.familylawchicago.com.