Legal Blog - Divorce Preparation

Telling your spouse that you want a divorce is stressful. How to ask for a divorce is the most challenging thing. Putting off telling your spouse is easy. Summoning the courage to tell your spouse you want a divorce is difficult and how it is done sets the tone for the divorce proceedings. Once you …

Abuse Prevention orders (209A) have serious impacts on divorce proceedings. A 209A is a civil protective order requested by one party against another pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 209A. A violation of a 209A is a criminal offense. Once it is ordered, vacating this orders (209A) is no small feat. M…

It is customary in Islam that parties negotiate a mahr. A mahr is a payment from the groom to the bride at the time of the marriage and becomes the bride’s property. During a divorce, does Massachusetts have the authority to enforce the mahr?…

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act.” [1] A decline in a person’s mental health can be triggered by major life events (i.e. birth, death, divorce, job(s), etc.). When going through a divorce, you must evaluate and rec…

Upon filing a Massachusetts complaint about divorce, you will receive a summons that you must have served on your spouse. The summons serves several purposes. 1) It informs the non-filing spouse that you have filed for divorce. 2) It then instructs your spouse to file an answer to the complaint with…

Following Part I in this three-part series on the Probate and Family Court’s newly released Standing Order 1-17, this post discusses the 2014 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision (“SJC”) that first suggested the creation of a rule pertaining to the appointment of parenting coordinator…

If you’re thinking about divorce, then it is best to be prepared prior to filing for divorce. Planning ahead will help expedite the process and give you an advantage over your unprepared spouse. Below is a list of 10 steps you can take prior to filing for divorce to best prepare you for the proces…

President Donald Trump’s busy first weeks in office included the signing of an executive order on immigration that, among other things, serves to ban citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States for the next one hundred and twenty days. This order sparked much disc…

A lawyer in Ohio made national headlines a short while ago after she was held in contempt for refusing to obey a judge’s order to remove a political pin from her suit. While the term contempt is familiar to most people, few understand when and how it should be used, especially in the context of &h…

Following Part I in this three-part series on the Pfannenstiehl v. Pfannenstiehl case, this post discusses how the majority opinion as well as the dissenting opinion handled a spendthrift trust interest in relation to the marital estate and its subsequent division.…