Category: Florida BAR article
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Annual Reports: Legal Needs of Children
Ten years ago, a group was formed to study how to make sure kids in Florida have good lawyers. Six years ago, another group was formed to try to make the first group’s ideas into laws. They want to make sure that kids who need lawyers get good ones, and they are working on making…
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Custody Determination: Who Gets the Dependency Exemption and Child Tax Credit?
A “custodial parent” for taxes is the parent the child lived with most of the time. If they spent an equal amount of time with each parent, the one with more money is the “custodial parent”. If a child of divorced parents spends more than half the year with one parent, that parent is considered…
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Through the Eyes of a Child: Impact and Measures to Protect Children in High-conflict Family Law Litigation
Having a long, bitter legal battle about children is really bad for everyone involved, especially the kids. It can make parents and even adult children really upset and stressed out. This article talks about how parents need to work together for the kids’ sake, and how fighting in court can hurt the kids. It also…
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What Do I Do Now? All of the Children Are Not Exercising the Same Time-sharing Schedule
Child support guidelines were first introduced in 1987 to help determine the amount of child support that should be paid. In 2003, Florida adopted a second formula for cases where children spend a significant amount of time with both parents. The guidelines also allow for adjustments in certain circumstances, such as extraordinary expenses or the…
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Winning the Race to the Courthouse: The Principle of Priority
Legal firm and attorney names have been replaced with placeholders. In this article, a famous celebrity is being sued for breach of contract by a music producer. The producer claims the celebrity didn’t fulfill their end of a deal to record an album. The lawsuit is ongoing, and both parties are trying to reach a…
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Justice Delayed in Child Support Cases Involving Incarcerated Parents
The Florida Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Dept of Revenue v. Jackson has created a situation where incarcerated parents can’t get their child support payments reduced while they’re in prison. This is unfair to the children who are supposed to receive the support. This article talks about the debate over whether parents in…
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Immigration Form I-864 (Affidavit of Support) and Efforts to Collect Damages as Support Obligations Against Divorced Spouses What Practitioners Need to Know
Imagine a person who can sue their ex-spouse for support every year until one of them dies. They can go back and forth between state and federal court to keep filing new lawsuits for support. It might seem impossible, but it’s actually happening. The I-864 affidavit of support is a form that U.S. citizens or…
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The Bursting Bubble Dealing with the Marital Home During a Real Estate Recession
Back in the day, divorcing couples could easily sell their house and split the money. But now, with the housing market in bad shape, it’s harder to sell a house for a good price. People are stuck with houses they can’t sell or afford to buy out their ex-spouse. So, one person often has to…
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Extortion: What Your Client Wants
Extortion is a serious crime in family law. It happens when one person threatens to accuse someone else of a crime or harm their reputation in order to get money or something else of value. This is against the law in Florida and can result in felony charges. If someone threatens you in this way…
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The Application of Kinney System, Inc. v. Continental Ins. Co. to Modification of Child Custody Proceedings
When parents live in different states and want to change the custody arrangements for their child, they have to figure out which state’s court to go to. There are laws that help make this decision clearer, but sometimes it can still be confusing. When a court has the power to make a decision about something,…
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Frozen Embryos, Divorce, and Needed Legislation: On the Horizon or Has It Arrived?
In 1984, the first baby was born from a frozen embryo. However, it wasn’t until 1992 that the legal world started thinking about what to do with unused frozen embryos when couples get divorced. Since then, there have been a few court decisions about this, but they don’t provide a clear answer for future cases.…
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The Presumptions of Privette: Have They Perished with the Coming of Daniel and Disestablishment of Paternity
In Florida, the Supreme Court has ruled that once a child is born during a marriage, they have the right to be considered legitimate, even if they are not biologically related to the husband. This is to protect the best interests of the child. If someone wants to challenge this presumption, they must provide very…
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Determining the Nonmarital Portion of Pensions and Retirement Benefits
This article discusses complex issues with retirement plans, specifically defined contribution plans like 401(k) and profit sharing plans. The main issue is determining the nonmarital portion of these plans in a divorce. There are two methods used for this, but both violate Florida Statutes. Using tracing investments as a method doesn’t work because the participant…
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The Collaborative Law Process Act: The Future Is Now
In 2016, Florida passed a law called the Collaborative Law Process Act that allows families to work together to solve their problems without going to court. This helps everyone involved to communicate better and find solutions that work for everyone. The Florida Supreme Court is still working on the rules for how this process will…
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Homeschooling and the Perils of Shared Parental Responsibility
More and more kids in Florida are being homeschooled, with over 75,000 currently doing it. Florida is known as a good place for homeschooling. Families have options for homeschooling that are recognized by the law. Homeschooling is a big lifestyle change for parents and kids. When parents who homeschool get divorced, it can be hard…
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What the Abacus Can Teach Us About Technology (And Other Valuable Lessons About Innovation and Collaboration)
Access to justice, or the ability for everyone to have a fair chance in court, has been a big issue for a while. Many people can’t afford to hire a lawyer and get turned away from legal help. This is a big problem because everyone deserves a fair shot in court. The Florida Supreme Court…
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An In-Depth Look at Active Effort in the Appreciation of Nonmarital Assets
When a couple gets married, any assets they acquire are considered to be owned by both of them. If one spouse wants to prove that some assets are not shared, they have to show evidence that they kept those assets separate from everything else. This could mean keeping them in a separate bank account or…
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Relocation: A Moveable Feast?
Summary: This is a legal case about a company that is being sued for not paying its employees properly. The employees say they were working overtime but not getting paid for it. The court decided that the company has to pay the employees for the overtime they worked. In the 1980s, laws changed so that…
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The Commingling of Nonmarital and Marital Funds: Untangling the Changing Character of Assets in Equitable Distribution
When a married couple combines their money, it can be complicated to figure out who gets what if they decide to divorce. In Florida, the law says that assets should be divided equally, but there are exceptions if one person can prove that the money used to buy something was theirs before the marriage. The…
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The Gay Divorcee: Marriage Equality in Florida and the Nation
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court made an important decision about same-sex marriage in the case United States v. Windsor. This decision marked a new era for marriage equality. The issue of same-sex marriage is still being debated, but it will likely be resolved soon when the Court decides if state laws banning same-sex marriage…
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Recurring Issues with Florida’s Municipal Pension Plans in Family Law Cases
In Florida, a law says that municipal pensions and benefits are exempt from taxes and cannot be divided through a court order (QDRO). Courts have said that the only way for a nonparticipant spouse to get their share of a pension is by asking the participant spouse to make direct payments. This can cause problems…
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The Dependency Exemption for Minor Children: When Following the Rules Pays Off
In 2011, about 84 million people claimed tax deductions for their kids. These deductions can help lower your taxes and give you other tax benefits. The deduction amount changes each year based on inflation, and it gets smaller for high earners. When parents split up and argue over who gets to claim the deduction, it…
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To Catch a Time-sharing Deviation
The popular child support deviation and adjustment in Florida disappeared one day, but investigators found it. The catch-all exception in the child support guidelines helped crack the case. Calculating child support used to be up to a judge, but in 1984, Congress made guidelines for all states to follow. Florida’s guidelines have some problems and…
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Purposeful Navigation Through the Seas of Social Change: A Theory-based Approach to Florida Alimony Reform
The law in Florida about alimony has been changing because society’s views on marriage and gender roles have also changed. In 2011, there were some changes to the alimony laws, but some people still thought they weren’t enough. In 2012, there was a new proposed law that would have made big changes to alimony, like…