Posted on September 01, 2021 in Divorce

If you are getting divorced, you may be completely unsure of what to expect. How long will the divorce take? Will I need to go to court? What steps are involved in the divorce process? Questions like these are important. While there is no way to predict exactly how your divorce case will unfold, educating yourself about the Illinois divorce process will help you prepare for the different possibilities. The "discovery" phase of the divorce involves gathering facts and information using discovery tools such as interrogatories and depositions.

Discovery Depends on the Spouses’ Transparency

Divorcing spouses are asked to fill out a financial disclosure form in which they list assets, income, and other financial data. If both spouses freely disclose accurate financial data and other relevant information, the discovery process involves little more than confirming this information. Unfortunately, in many divorce cases, spouses are not fully transparent about financial issues or other divorce concerns. They may refuse to disclose certain information, hide assets, or lie about parenting matters. Consequently, the spouses’ attorneys must use various legal methods to obtain this information and ensure its accuracy.

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 Posted on August 31, 2021 in Divorce

Marriages can break down for a variety of reasons, but infidelity is one of the most painful and emotionally difficult issues that can lead to divorce. If your marriage is ending because either you or your spouse were unfaithful, you will probably be wondering how this will affect your divorce proceedings. Whether you are struggling to come to terms with your spouse’s infidelity or you are concerned about whether your own behavior during your marriage will play a role in your divorce, you will want to understand how Illinois law applies in your situation.

Addressing Infidelity When Filing for Divorce or Resolving Disputes

Even though the wounds of your broken marriage may still be raw, it is important to understand that the legal process of divorce is not focused on assigning blame for the end of a relationship. When filing for divorce in Illinois, the petitioning spouse will not specify any fault-based grounds for divorce, and they will not give specific reasons for their desire to dissolve the marriage. Instead, a divorce petition will state that irreconcilable differences have led to the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. This will allow you and your spouse to approach your divorce on equal terms without any disputes over who was at fault.

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 Posted on August 30, 2021 in Divorce

Alimony, spousal maintenance, and spousal support are all terms used to describe the financial assistance an individual provides to his or her spouse during or after divorce. In Illinois, you can request temporary spousal maintenance while your divorce is ongoing through a "temporary relief order." You may also receive payments after the divorce is complete. However, spousal maintenance is not guaranteed, and many divorce cases conclude without a spousal maintenance order. Read on to learn about how, why, and when spousal maintenance is awarded in Illinois.

How Can You Get Spousal Support?

Spousal maintenance may be awarded to a spouse if the spouses agreed to maintenance in a valid prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. The spouses may also reach an agreement on the amount and duration of maintenance payments during settlement negotiations in their divorce. Lastly, a spouse may request maintenance by filing a petition with the court.

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 Posted on August 27, 2021 in Child Custody

Many parents who are thinking about ending their marriage have the same concern. They wonder, "How often will I get to see my kids if we divorce?" If you are thinking about divorce and you live in Illinois, it is important to understand how the state handles visitation. It is also important to know the vocabulary Illinois courts now use to describe parenting duties. In Illinois, the term "visitation" is no longer used to describe the time that a child spends with each parent. Visitation has been replaced by the term "parenting time." Read on to learn about how parenting time decisions are handled in Illinois divorce cases.

How Much Parenting Time Does Each Parent Get?

Parents have the right to design their own parenting plan and submit it to the court for approval. As long as the parenting plan serves the child’s best interests, the plan will be approved and formalized into a binding court order. The parenting plan contains important information about how parents will make major decisions such as where the child goes to school, as well as the parenting time schedule. Some parents decide to split parenting time nearly equally. Others create a plan in which the child lives with one parent on the weekend and the other parent on the weekdays.

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 Posted on August 25, 2021 in Alimony / Maintenance

There are a variety of reasons why either spouse may wish to modify the terms of their divorce. Both parties may experience changes in their lives that affect their finances, their living arrangements, and their ability to meet their ongoing obligations or provide for themselves. Based on these changes, a person may believe that the decisions made about spousal support during the divorce process no longer apply to their situation. If a person believes that a modification of spousal maintenance is needed, they will want to understand their options and the procedures that will be followed.

Requesting a Modification of Spousal Maintenance

As with other types of post-divorce modifications, requests to make changes to spousal support obligations will need to be based on significant changes in the circumstances of either or both parties. These requests will usually be based on changes to the income and financial resources available to the parties. For example, if a person paying support loses their job, they may ask for maintenance payments to be reduced or terminated. Similarly, if the person receiving support experiences a decrease in income or an increase in their financial needs, they may ask that support payments be increased.

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 Posted on August 23, 2021 in High Asset Divorce

During a couple's divorce, all aspects of their finances should be considered to ensure that their marital property can be divided fairly and equitably. When a spouse is a business owner, this process can become very complex. In some cases, a person may attempt to use a business to hide assets in hopes that they can keep money or property for themself and avoid dividing these assets with their spouse. When one spouse owns and operates a business, the other spouse can work with an attorney to identify any assets that have been concealed and ensure that all of their marital property is considered during the divorce process.

Methods of Hiding Assets Through a Business

A business owner may come up with a variety of ways to conceal money from their spouse as a way to gain a financial advantage during and after their divorce. These include:

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 Posted on August 19, 2021 in Child Support

Parents who get divorced will need to address a variety of issues related to financial support for their children. While both parents are expected to contribute financially to their children’s needs, understanding exactly what is covered by child support can sometimes be a complex matter. By working with an attorney to understand how the law applies in their situation, parents can ensure that their children will have the necessary financial resources, while also making sure they will have the means to support themselves.

Basic Child Support and Additional Child-Related Expenses

In Illinois, parents’ child support obligations are determined using a method that takes both parents’ incomes into consideration. The law details a method of calculating what is known as the “basic child support obligation.” This amount is meant to represent the regular, ongoing expenses that parents would have paid for their children if they were still married.

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 Posted on August 16, 2021 in Family Law

Domestic violence affects the lives of millions of people every day in the United States, and Illinois residents are no exception. If you or a loved one has experienced domestic violence or abuse, you may have questions about protection orders. In Illinois, an Emergency Order of Protection is often issued on the same day that it was requested. It prohibits the subject of the order from contacting or coming near the petitioner and may also contain other provisions such as a provision requiring the subject to surrender his or her firearms. An order of protection also helps to create an official record of the abusive person’s behavior. However, many abuse victims fail to get this important and potentially life-saving protection because they do not know if what they experienced was technically abuse under the law.

Can I Get an Order of Protection If the Abuser Never Physically Harmed Me?

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 Posted on August 13, 2021 in Paternity

Originally published: May 16, 2016 -- Updated: August 12, 2021

UPDATE: It is important for fathers to understand that attempting to avoid responsibility for a child by refusing to sign the birth certificate or acknowledge fatherhood is usually not a good strategy. Even if a person did not want to have a child and does not want to be involved in the child’s life, they may still bear some responsibility for ensuring that the child’s needs will be met.

While a father may choose not to voluntarily acknowledge paternity, the child’s mother or other parties, such as a child support agency, may take legal action to establish paternity for the child. In these cases, a court will usually order DNA testing to be performed, and if a test shows that a man is the child’s biological father, he will be recognized as the legal father. Even if a father will not be sharing in parental responsibilities or spending any parenting time with the child, he will most likely still be required to pay ongoing child support. Typically, a father’s responsibilities toward a child will only be terminated if the child is adopted by another party, such as a step-parent or a relative. In these cases, the father may voluntarily relinquish parental rights and responsibilities, and the adoptive parent will be named the child’s legal parent.

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 Posted on August 12, 2021 in Divorce

We typically think of marriage as a romantic partnership. However, marriage is also a legal relationship. When a married couple divorces, they will need to follow certain procedures to dissolve the legal marital relationship. If you are thinking about getting divorced in Illinois, you may wonder what the process entails. For example, you may wonder what the legal grounds for divorce are in Illinois, or whether there is a waiting period before you can file for divorce. The better educated you are about the divorce process in Illinois, the better prepared you will be to end your marriage on your terms.

Illinois is a "No-Fault" Divorce State

Sometimes, well-meaning friends and family members give inaccurate and outdated divorce advice. One reason that this happens is that laws are always changing. Prior to January 1, 2016, Illinois had two options for divorce: fault-based divorce and no-fault divorce. Fault-based grounds were things like infidelity or abuse. However, Public Act 99-90 eliminated all of the fault-based grounds for divorce in the state of Illinois.

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