Posted on April 26, 2022 in Divorce

Child support payments are an essential resource for divorced or unmarried parents in Illinois. While some people believe that a parent’s moral obligation to help his or her children may last forever, the law in Illinois says that a parent’s financial responsibility to his or her child does eventually end. Parents who are paying or receiving child support may be anxious to know when, exactly, that legal obligation runs out. As with many legal questions, the answer is, “It depends.”

When Does a Child Become an Adult?

The law says that children become legal adults, with all the responsibility that adulthood entails, when they are 18. However, a parent’s financial responsibility for a child does not automatically end when their child turns 18. If the child is still in high school, child support payments may continue until the child graduates from high school or turns 19. Furthermore, while some child support orders include a specific date at which child support payments will end, other parents must go to court to request a termination of payments before they can stop.

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 Posted on April 18, 2022 in Child Custody

Summertime presents unique challenges to divorced or never-married parents who share underage children in Illinois. Children are out of school, and younger children require full-time care, forcing parents to get creative in finding childcare options and summer activities that are affordable and feasible for their schedules. Coordinating frequent visits and transportation from house to house adds to the complexity of summer schedules. If you are creating or modifying a parenting plan in Illinois, here are three tips to help you co-parent successfully in the coming summer months.

Plan Ahead

Some parents specifically include their summer parenting plan in their initial parenting agreement. Whenever possible, taking this route is recommended for several reasons. First, it allows parents to avoid conflict by making decisions ahead of time. Second, it encourages parents to provide a stable and thoughtful environment for the children during an otherwise unstructured time. Finally, it gives children an idea of what to expect, preventing misbehavior stemming from anxiety or uncertainty about the future.

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 Posted on April 18, 2022 in Divorce

Researchers have spent thousands of hours with married couples, analyzing their behaviors, communication patterns, and body language to try to determine whether certain actions are predictive of divorce. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are actions that, when frequently engaged in by couples, make it easier to predict whether a marriage will eventually end. While nobody is perfect and everybody uses unhealthy communication strategies from time to time, if you recognize that the following behaviors frequently appear in your marriage, you may feel trapped and unhappy. If so, it could be time to speak with an Illinois divorce attorney.

Criticism

Part of personal growth and development is knowing when to change your behavior. Sometimes, spouses can be helpful for gently pointing out that certain things need to change. But when your spouse regularly attacks you or your character, you will likely feel criticized and demeaned - and nobody feels good about that. For example, if your spouse does not like the way you load the dishwasher and, instead of asking you to load it differently, accuses you of always being lazy or stupid, your spouse may be overly critical.

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 Posted on April 11, 2022 in Child Custody

All across Illinois, more and more parents are choosing to homeschool their children. In Chicago alone, nearly 25,000 fewer children were enrolled in public schools in the past two years than in previous years. While it is hard to obtain data specifically for the entirety of Cook County, Illinois does not require homeschooling families to register with the authorities and so the rates of homeschooled children are estimated to likely be even higher than the numbers suggest.

The question of whether or not to homeschool poses a potential dilemma for parents who are divorced. The choice to homeschool one’s children often has as much to do with closely-held beliefs around religion or cultural values as it does with fundamental questions about the competency of Illinois public schools. If parents disagree about homeschooling methods or the reasons for leaving the local public school, which parent gets to decide the best path for a child’s education?

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 Posted on April 07, 2022 in Divorce

Even when you know that getting divorced is the right choice, the process can still be very difficult. Most people feel a range of complex emotions, including guilt, sorrow, anger, and even regret. Long before the divorce is final, you are likely to be ready to move to the next stage of your life, and you may feel frustrated by how long the process is taking. If any of this sounds familiar to you, here are six tips to help you get through your DuPage County divorce.

Strategies For Getting Through Divorce

• Surround yourself with friends and family - Divorce often means losing the person with whom you used to share important details about your day. Although you may not be able to replace the role your spouse filled, having people to turn to for friendship, support, and a listening ear can make a big difference in your happiness during divorce.

• Practice forgiveness - Divorce usually leaves people feeling at least a little angry - angry about infidelity, emotional neglect, abuse, or even just the way things turned out. Holding on to the bitterness of past actions only ends up hurting you in the long turn. Forgiveness is a skill that we can get better at, and practicing forgiveness after divorce will help you move on.

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 Posted on April 06, 2022 in Family Law

One of the reasons that the divorce rate among younger couples in Illinois is beginning to decline is that many people are choosing to live together long-term instead of getting married. The risks of marriage may seem too great for the potential rewards, or a couple may simply be uninterested in the hassle and formality of a wedding.

Whatever the reason, living together still presents challenges in terms of who owns what property, especially if a couple shares financial responsibilities like home or vehicle ownership. If you are considering living together but not getting married, you will not be protected by marriage and divorce laws if you separate; you may, therefore, find a cohabitation agreement written with the help of an Illinois family lawyer useful.

Reasons for Writing a Cohabitation Agreement 

Couples who are married receive legal protections in the form of property rights, tax benefits, and paternity assumptions about any children that are born to them. However, unmarried couples who want similar benefits need written and signed cohabitation agreements. Some reasons to create a cohabitation agreement include: 

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 Posted on April 04, 2022 in Estate Planning

It is rather common for people to think of estate planning as an end-of-life task. Estate planning attorneys are often called to visit clients in skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, and hospice centers. However, waiting until this point to make a will can have negative ramifications. One of the major requirements for a will to be considered legal and enforceable is that the testator (the person creating their will) must have the mental capacity to do so. This standard is known as "testamentary capacity." It is designed to prevent those who are incapacitated from executing a will that they would not have agreed to if they were not incapacitated. It also protects elders and their families against those who would exercise undue influence over a disoriented adult during the estate planning process.

Testamentary capacity is a relatively low bar - even those with early forms of Alzheimer’s or dementia may be able to make a will under the right circumstances. An attorney will be able to apply this standard to help determine whether someone still has the capacity to make a will.

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 Posted on March 29, 2022 in Divorce

While many parts of getting divorced in Illinois are flexible, such as the exact details of how a particular couple will divide their marital property, other parts are more technical and, at the end of the day, all elements in a divorce decree must follow Illinois law. For simple divorces involving couples who have no children and no significant shared property, following the law may be easier because there are fewer complex issues to negotiate or legal statutes to interpret.

Many versions of online divorce software have cropped up in recent years to address divorce for couples who trust their ability to follow the law and handle the divorce process themselves. Divorce is not the only legal situation for which software exists - loan agreements, prenuptial agreements, wills and trusts, and tax returns can all be set up online. While the ease and simplicity of many of these services can be beneficial and inexpensive, potential divorcees should be wary of relying on internet software to handle the entirety of their divorce.

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 Posted on March 28, 2022 in Divorce

Even for spouses who get along fairly well, divorce in Illinois can be a complex and expensive affair. Spouses may wonder whether sharing a divorce attorney could save them time and money, especially if they want to cooperatively reach a resolution on issues like asset division and child custody.

However, no matter how well-intentioned spouses are towards each other, the fact is that divorce attorneys may only represent one partner in a divorcing couple. Attorneys are required to abide by ethical obligations that protect their clients, such as maintaining the attorney-client privilege and never allowing conflicts of interest to mar their representation of a client. Because even the most cooperative divorcing spouses necessarily have different and often opposing interests, an attorney representing both spouses would run into obvious conflicts of interest.

Why Should I Hire My Own Attorney?

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 Posted on March 25, 2022 in Divorce

Divorce in Illinois is often a long process made up of many different parts that can each have their own confusing legal terms. Even for couples who try their best to work together and communicate clearly, divorce can feel stuffy and complicated and couples may feel frustrated that their private information suddenly feels very public.

One of the areas people commonly have questions about is the process of discovery, which is one of the most notorious elements of courtroom dramas. Fortunately, divorce discovery tends to be much more boring and straightforward than it might seem on TV. If you are getting divorced and have questions about the divorce process, an experienced divorce attorney can help you get answers to your questions.

What is the Purpose of Discovery?

For couples who do not agree on factual issues in their divorce, the discovery process allows attorneys to trade information back and forth to facilitate compromise between the spouses or prepare for courtroom litigation. Many couples never even need to use the discovery process because they can resolve disputes in mediation or between each other without professional help. But for couples who deal with issues like hidden income or assets, domestic violence, or when one parent alleges their spouse is unfit to be a parent, discovery is useful and necessary because it allows each spouse’s attorney to gather information they can then use to present an argument before a judge.

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