Posted on January 15, 2018 in Main

Over the last few months, sexual harassment has been all over the news. From movie stars to politicians many influential people have been accused of sexual harassment. At the recent Golden Globes award show, actors and actresses wore a black-and-white pin inscribed with the words “Times Up.” The pin—which worn by stars like Justin Timberlake and Michelle Pfeiffer—references the idea that time is up for men who have been allowed to be sexually inappropriate with un-consenting women. Sexual harassment, however, is not something that only happens to celebrities.

Studies have found that bartending is the profession third-most vulnerable to nonfatal workplace violence. Only law enforcement and security are more dangerous is this regard. Much of this violence is due to sexual harassment. There is no one conclusive reason for this statistic to be true, but the consumption of alcohol and the party-like atmosphere of many bars are almost certainly factors. People also tend to see friendly and social behavior by a bartender as an invitation to make sexual advances.

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 Posted on January 08, 2018 in Kane

Spousal maintenance, also called spousal support or alimony, refers to the payments one spouse (the obligor) makes to the other (the obligee) after a divorce. The purpose of spousal support is to provide "reasonable and necessary" financial support to the lower-earning spouse.

In Illinois, there are four main types of spousal support: temporary, permanent, reviewable, and rehabilitative. Temporary maintenance is sometimes ordered by a judge in order to help a spouse financially during the divorce proceeding. If a judge orders permanent maintenance, the obligor makes payments until the spouse passes away, remarries, or cohabits with a new partner. If the obligor passes away before the recipient, the decedent's estate does not have to continue payments.

Permanent maintenance is generally ordered in instances where the marriage lasted 20 years or more. Rehabilitative spousal support is a temporary support measure which allows the obligee time to acquire the education, skills, training, work history, and licensure needed to become financially independent. Finally, reviewable alimony refers to orders for spousal support which are made with the intention of being reviewed and possibly modified or discontinued by the courts in the future.

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 Posted on January 02, 2018 in Main

Same-sex marriage has been legal since June 2015. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the United States Supreme Court ruled that state-level bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. As with any marriage, marriages between same-sex couples do not always work out as the couple originally planned. A couple in Hawaii has found themselves in the national spotlight as their unique parenting dispute continues.

Unusual Circumstances

The lesbian couple was first married in Washington, D. C. in 2013 before moving to Hawaii. The couple had previously discussed having a child together and while one of the women was deployed through the military during 2015, her spouse got pregnant via a sperm donor. The woman who was deployed filed for divorce, and the baby was born while the divorce was pending. The non-biological parent now wishes to sever her parental rights regarding the child. She claims that she did not know of her ex-spouse's plans to get pregnant, was not there for the birth of the child, and has not developed a relationship with the child. She does not believe that she should be responsible for child support and is willing to give up her legal parental rights to the child.

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 Posted on December 22, 2017 in Kane

Every day, people make the decision to divorce their spouse. Sometimes, the split is related to adultery or abuse, and other times the spouses simply no longer wish to be married. For many of these couples, divorce is something they never saw in their future. Most couples get married with the hope of spending the rest of their lives together. They share not only their lives but also all of their possessions. This can make the issue of property division especially tricky during divorce.

Couples who are considering divorce may worry about how their savings account, retirement accounts, family home, vehicles, furniture, and other assets will be divided. In Illinois, property is divided based on what is “equitable.” This means that the property may not be split exactly evenly. Instead, it will be divided in accordance with what the court deems to be fair and just. Each case is different, but generally, a judge will consider factors such as:

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 Posted on December 20, 2017 in Main

There are nearly 4 million divorced parents in the United States today. For many of these parents, the holidays can be especially difficult to navigate because they have family visiting from out of town who want to see the children or who brought presents for them. How is a divorced parent supposed to please everyone during the holidays and still stay sane? The short answer is that it is impossible to please everyone when you are sharing parenting responsibilities with an ex-spouse. But with some planning and flexibility, it is possible to have a happy holiday season as a divorced parent.

Be Proactive

As the old saying goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” This is especially true when it comes to issues of parental responsibilities and parenting time. If you already have a parenting agreement in place, sit down with a calendar and note how your regular parenting schedule aligns with the holidays. In some formal Parental Responsibility Agreements, holidays are treated like regular days and sometimes, they have their own schedule and rules. Once you know who will have the children and when, you can start to figure out how to arrange the holiday activities or family visits. Do not wait until the last minute to make plans.

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 Posted on December 13, 2017 in Main

The issue of sexual harassment has never before been talked about with the candor and seriousness that it has been of recently. Allegations of sexual harassment that were made against many high-powered individuals such as President Donald Trump, Senator Al Franken, and film producer Harvey Weinstein, have started a fury of backlash against perpetrators of sexual abuse, both famous and unknown. In fact, Time Magazine recently announced that its prestigious “Person of the Year” designation goes to the “silence breakers”: Those brave individuals who came forward with their stories of sexual harassment and started a movement. Women and men of all ages, ethnicities, and income levels are reporting past instances of sexual harassment, assault, and other sexual misconduct.

What Is Sexual Harassment?

Sometimes the terms sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, inappropriate behavior, and abuse are used incorrectly or interchangeably. It can be confusing to know exactly what the law is. Sexual harassment is technically a form of sex discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defines sexual harassment as "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment." Sexual harassment can include behaviors such as:

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 Posted on December 08, 2017 in Kane

The purpose of child support is to help the primary residential parent of a child or children to be able to afford basic necessities such as rent or mortgage payments, the child's clothing, school supplies, and their meals. Those who receive child support often depend on that extra income in order to pay their bills and maintain a good quality of life for their children. For some parents, a missed payment here and there will not cause a major financial crisis. For others living on a tight budget, a missed child support payment can be devastating. During the holidays, many parents rush to the stores to buy their children Christmas gifts. However, it is important to note that the money spent on children's Christmas gifts cannot count toward child support payments.

Changes to Child Support in Illinois

Recently, several major changes were made to the way Illinois courts calculate child support. The amount of child support that is awarded to a parent is now based on an “income shares” or “shared parenting” model. The incomes of both parents are now taken into account, rather than solely that of the paying parent. The new model also takes into consideration how much time the parents each spend with their children on an overnight basis. This is intended to help alleviate the child support costs for those parents who also spend money on their children during their parenting time. The new model is based on three main factors: the estimated total amount of money needed to raise the child, extra costs that a parent may encounter such as expenses for health care, education, and after-school activities, and the amount of overnights the child spends with each parent.

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 Posted on November 20, 2017 in Main

If you are a divorced parent, you may find it very tough to pursue your own personal interests and hobbies. Between work and providing for your children, it might be nearly impossible to find time to travel, meet with friends, or participate in fun activities. It is important to develop an identity apart from being a parent as doing so is crucial to your psychological and emotional health. One of the biggest challenges that you are likely to face as a divorced parent is finding a sitter to care for your child when you need it. Depending on your situation, however, your parenting plan may require you to call your child's other parent first.

What is the Right of First Refusal?

According to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, a divorced or unmarried couple's parenting plan may grant what is known as the “right of first refusal” to one or both parents. The right of first refusal essentially gives a parent “first dibs” on the opportunity to care for the child if the other parent needs alternative childcare during his or her normal parenting time. This may seem rather complicated, but it is actually quite simple in practice.

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 Posted on November 08, 2017 in Main

According to a recent study by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, up to 95 percent of workplace sexual harassment victims never file a formal complaint. Considering that thousands of formal complaints are filed every year, this means countless other victims suffer silently. If that number sounds outrageously high, take a look at the posts that have been flooding Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets in recent weeks. Chances are good that you will find countless examples of sexual harassment and assault that have gone unreported before now—many of them from family members and others in your social circles.

Such posts were prompted, in large part, by a single tweet from actress Alyssa Milano who expressed her feelings in the wake of accusations against famed film producer Harvey Weinstein. In her Twitter post, Milano encouraged women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed to reply, “Me too.” Within hours, the responses began to flood social media, and Milano herself replied to her own post with a “Me too.” Women from all walks of life—including numerous other high-profile actresses and entertainers—started sharing their stories of sexual harassment, most of them marked with the trend-tracking hashtag #MeToo.

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 Posted on November 07, 2017 in Kane

Divorce is not an entirely new phenomenon but it has certainly become more socially acceptable and widespread over the last 40 or so years. As divorce became more commonplace in the 1970s and 80s, a divorcing couples' children were generally left under the care of their mothers. Divorced dads, by and large, seemed to be less important—with the exception of child support—in the bigger picture of raising the children.

In many ways, this custom was a reflection of the cultural belief that mothers were more nurturing and more inclined to raise children properly compared to fathers. While fathers were given occasional “visits” with their children, it was difficult for men to foster true parent-child relationships with their sons and daughters. In fact, many were more like an uncle figure or family friend than a dad.

New Understandings

Since then, family and relationship experts have conducted dozens of studies regarding the health and well-being of children after divorce. Many such projects looked directly at how children in joint or shared parenting arrangements fared compared to those in sole custody situations. These studies have been conducted using different methods, both in the United States and in other countries, and the results have been largely the same. Children who spend a significant amount of time with each parent—35 percent or more—tend to do better socially, psychologically, and academically than children who live with one parent and just visit the other. Shared parenting arrangements also result in better relationships between the children and both parents.

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