Some Rules of the Game in Divorce Court

Posted on July 31st, 2008 by olga

The divorce laws and guidelines of your state make available a structure and set boundaries for resolving the fundamental issues that must be decided earlier than your marriage can be finished. In other words, those laws and guidelines are in point of fact quite flexible, within definite limits:

-You and your other half have a substantial amount of leeway when you decide on most of those issues, as long as you are both in agreement because you work your way through the divorce process.-Spousal support, and child custody and visitation, assume that a family law judge is looking over your shoulder for the reason that you address the division of your marital property. This means that no matter what you decide about those matters should be fair to you both, given the laws of your state, and your conclusions should reflect an appreciation of what the judge would probably decide if your divorce were to finish in a trial.

-Between other factors, local models and cultural values can influence the result of a divorce. A judge in a more socially conservative part of a state may decide the same issue - alimony or which parent gets custody, for instance - quite differently than a judge in a more socially liberal part of that same state.
Anticipating family law judges can be tricky for the reason that judges have significant discretion in how they deduce the law. Additionally, the truth is that their decisions are at times colored by their own prejudices, preferences, and real-life experiences even though you would like to think that all judges approach legal issues with no bias. For instance, if your divorce goes to trial, the judge who hears your case may have just been divorced and may feel that he or she was “taken to the cleaners” by his or her ex-partner; or the judge’s daughter may be a single, divorced mom who struggles to make ends meet for the reason that her ex-partner is not meeting his support duties.

You can appeal a judge’s decision, but appeals are rather difficult to win. What is more, appealing means spending more money on an attorney and then, if you win your appeal, more money on a new trial.

Divorce law helps resolve legal and financial issues. The law won’t resolve the annoyance, guilt, fear, or sadness you may feel. Don’t look to the legal system to do that for you. You’ll be left feeling dissatisfied and irritated when your divorce is over.