Posted on December 14, 2016 in Main

When you are arrested on suspicion of a crime, the arrest becomes part of your permanent record, even if you are never convicted. Prospective employers, lenders, and school admissions officials—among many others—may look into your criminal background when considering your application for a job, a loan, or an educational program. Having even a single arrest on your record can lead to embarrassing questions and conversations for many years after the fact. Depending on the outcome of your case, you may qualify to have the arrest expunged, or erased from your record. Now, a new law is extending the possibility of expungement to a much larger group of individuals in an effort to create more opportunities for those with a mistake or two in their past.

What Is Expungement?

According to the law, “‘expunge' means to physical destroy the record or return them to the petitioner and to obliterate the petitioner's name from any official index or public record, or both.”

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 Posted on November 16, 2016 in Main

When you have limited time with your child due to a divorce or breakup, the time you do get to spend with your child is extremely valuable. It is during this time that you must foster the relationship you share with your child and strengthen the parent-child bond between you. Anything that threatens your parenting time, then, must be taken very seriously, especially if your parenting time could be affected for an extended period of time. This is typically the case when your child's other parent intends to move with the child to a new city or state. Such a move is usually considered a relocation and Illinois law provides you, as a parent, with certain rights to object.

Legal Definition of Relocation

The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act defines a relocation as a move by a parent with half or more of the parenting time outside of a certain radius. A move is considered a relocation if it includes the child and is a move of:

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 Posted on November 02, 2016 in Main

Normally, when one thinks of divorce proceedings, one imagines a fairly orderly process. However, a number of unexpected events can happen that can complicate matters considerably. One of the most common, though it might seem implausible, is that one spouse may simply refuse to participate in the process. When this happens, it is entirely understandable to wonder whether your divorce can go forward at all.

Grounds and Separation Questions

The question of grounds for divorce no longer plays a role in your ability to obtain one. Illinois formerly required grounds for divorce such as bigamy, impotence, and mental cruelty, but, now, a no-fault divorce will be granted simply based upon “irreconcilable differences.”

Serving the Papers

In popular culture, there is the trope that both spouses must sign the divorce papers, but in Illinois, this is not, in fact, the case. All that is required under Illinois law is that your spouse must be aware of the petition; namely, you must serve your spouse in an appropriate manner so that he or she is able to exercise their legal right to respond to the petition.

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 Posted on September 07, 2016 in Main

Although a divorce does, in effect, separate the family, it does not sever the tie between parents and child. Even in different homes, different cities, or different states, those familial bonds remain. More than that, a child's happiness and overall well-being often hinges on the continuance of a healthy and stable relationship with each parent. So, in most instances, life after divorce means learning how to successfully co-parent in a way that minimizes conflict but still ensures the child feels loved, valued, and connected to each parent. Not sure how to pave this path or where to even begin? The following tips may help.

What is Co-Parenting?

To truly understand how to successfully co-parent, you must first understand the concept. Different for every family in its structure and engagement, co-parenting is a relationship in which both parents have an active role in the day-to-day life of the child. This means that each parent should have contact, time, and decision-making power regarding important details of the child's life, such as their education, healthcare, religion, and extracurricular activities.

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 Posted on August 26, 2016 in Main

In most cases, children benefit greatly from having the financial and emotional support of both biological parents. Unfortunately, there are some cases in which one parent interferes with the time allocated to the other parent. If this denial is in direct violation of a court order, the parent that is missing out on time with their child has the right to seek enforcement through the court. If you are being denied parenting time with your child, the following information can help you determine what to do.

Visitation Interference is Considered a Crime in Illinois

If you took legal steps to receive legal parenting time with your child and your time is being interfered with (late drop-offs or returns, failure to show, etc.), then the denying or “interfering” parent is in contempt of a court order. This gives you certain legal rights, and it allows you to seek assistance from law enforcement and the family court for enforcement of the order. Unfortunately, these matters can be difficult to prove. Essentially, it is your word against the other parent's. For this reason, anyone who is being wrongfully denied parenting time should seek the assistance of an experienced family law attorney.

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 Posted on August 18, 2016 in Main

There are almost as many reasons to divorce as there are couples. Some split because of infidelity, others because of domestic violence, and still others because they simply “grew apart.” Even the internet has taken its fair share of the blame. It may be getting a lot more of that attention, thanks to the ever-growing phenomenon known as “facebragging” – the online over-sharing of positive, personal information.

Experts Say Social Media is Creating Unrealistic Expectations

People are spending more and more of their time online these days, which means they are frequently exposed to an inaccurate portrayal of perfection. Everyone does it after all – share only the good and cover up the bad. They post photographs of their picture-perfect wife but do not tell you that she is cheating, or they share the amazing vacations they take and fail to disclose that they spend weeks at a time away from their family. It is not that people intentionally hide this information to hurt anyone else; it is just hard to admit when there is a problem.

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 Posted on August 12, 2016 in Main

For parents who are planning to divorce, telling the children is often the most dreaded part of the process. They do not want to hurt their child, but they know that the discussion will be painful. There may be tears, anger, uncomfortable questions, accusations, or the child may simply shut down and shut their parents out. Delaying it will not make it easier, nor will glossing over the truth. However, there are some ways that you can talk to your children – tips and strategies – that may smooth the process, if not initially, then possibly in the long run.

Tell Your Child Together

If you follow only one piece of advice, let it be that you and your spouse sit down and talk to your child about the divorce together. While this might be challenging for parents who have a high-conflict marriage, it is absolutely critical. Everything is about to change, your family is about to split up. In the midst of all of that, your child needs to know that the divorce is mutual, and that there will be some things that do not change – namely that you will both be there for them when things are hard. That starts with sitting down together to tell them about the divorce.

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 Posted on July 20, 2016 in Main

Parents choose to stay home with their children for a number of reasons. For some, their family's lifestyle is easily supported by their spouse's income, which gives them the financial flexibility to spend time with their children. Others may stay home out of necessity.

Regardless of the reason – be it to care for a special needs child, a desire to parent full-time, or simply because they can – all are at risk for lifelong poverty, should their marriage end in divorce. If you are a stay-at-home parent and planning on filing for divorce, or have already been served with divorce papers, learn what you need to know about protecting your financial future, and how you can obtain skilled legal counsel, even if you have no assets of your own.

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 Posted on July 11, 2016 in Main

Divorce is a mentally, emotionally, and often financially challenging process that can impact almost every aspect of your life. Furthermore, there are several pitfalls and missteps that can have a long-term effect on your life. But can divorce hurt your credit rating? And, if so, how?

Filing for Divorce Does Not Equal Credit Doom

The act of filing for divorce itself does not impact your credit. Instead, it is the actions or inactions following divorce that can negatively affect your credit score. For example, if you are ordered to pay child support during the divorce decree but fail to make your payments, a judgement may be entered against you. Ultimately, this judgement will have a negative impact on your credit rating.

Dividing Debts During Divorce

Another potential influence on your credit is the way that debts are divided during divorce. If not done appropriately, you may end up with more debt than you can handle in divorce, which can cause you to fall behind on your payments. This is why it is critical that you seek guided assistance from an attorney with the division of your debts and assets during divorce. Able to help you understand if and why a debt may or may not be your responsibility, an attorney can help you negotiate a debt and asset settlement or, if an amicable solution cannot be reached, they can litigate on your behalf in court.

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 Posted on June 23, 2016 in Main

During a divorce, a couple's marital property is divided—property which may include retirement accounts and pensions. In order to allocate retirement accounts and pensions, documents called Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDROs) are necessary to divide a couple's retirement assets. However, most people are strangers to these documents until they require one. Therefore, familiarizing yourself with a QDRO, before your divorce proceeding gets off the ground, can be helpful.

What Does a QDRO Do?

A QDRO is a document that helps apportion percentages of any interest you may have in a retirement plan, such as a 401(k) or a pension. If your interest is in a public state entity, such as a Chicago Public Schools pension, you will need a document with specialized language known as a QDILRO, though they are functionally very similar.

Most often, what occurs is that two people draw up a property settlement, or the court may do so if they are unable to agree, that contains certain specific information. One piece of required information is the name of an ‘alternate payee,' or the person to whom a part of the asset is to go. Without an alternate payee's name, a domestic relations order cannot be a QDRO. Language is important in the domestic relations order because it can also disqualify the order if it grants, for example, interests in a retirement plan that have not yet vested, or fails to take into account the need for an alternate payee if the named payee were to die before his or her ex-spouse. Once the order meets the satisfaction of the court, it is signed into the record by the judge.

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