Recent Blog Posts
Positive Co-Parenting Following an Illinois Divorce
As a new year rolls in, many of us are looking to start the year fresh and better ourselves during 2023. Though working on yourself is always a positive thing, it can be difficult for those of us who have recently gone through a divorce. If you and your former spouse have children together, it can be especially challenging to remain positive and resilient in the new year. But with some patience and understanding, you and your former spouse can work on your relationship in a constructive manner for the benefit of your children.
How Can I Keep Positive?
Though it may go against your instincts to talk positively towards and about your former spouse, this will have a large impact on your child’s view of the parent. Young children are highly impressionable and what you say has a big influence on how they will feel and act in the future. Illinois Courts tend to lean in favor of keeping both parents involved in children’s lives as much as possible.
Can I Get an Annulment for my Kane County Marriage?
If you are looking to end your marriage, you may qualify for an annulment. Though an annulment is not the same as a divorce, it is another legal way to end a marriage. Technically, an annulment, called a Judgment of Invalidity of Marriage, asserts that a marriage was never valid to begin with. Specific requirements must be met for an annulment to be an option.
What Is an Annulment?
The state of Illinois views an annulment as the invalidity of a supposed marriage. This would mean that the marriage itself would be voided from the date of the marriage. In a divorce, the marriage is dissolved but an annulment invalidates the marriage altogether. There are only a select few circumstances that can qualify a marriage to be annulled:
- If one or both parties were under 18 at the time of the marriage, and therefore, under the legal age of consent, and did not have any consent from a guardian or the courts.
How is Custody Determined in an Illinois Divorce?
One of the most difficult decisions in a divorce is deciding who is granted custody over the children. If you and your spouse can reach a parenting plan outside of court, then things can remain comparatively less complicated. Oftentimes, however, a judgment must be passed within the courts to resolve the issue. There are many factors that are weighed when reaching the final decision. Having an experienced attorney in your corner is your best advantage when faced with the challenges of custody battles and divorce.
Important Factors Courts Consider When Deciding Custody
The Illinois Court system will typically attempt to settle for a shared custody plan for the spouses. As long as both parents can prove they have a stable home, the parenting plan will attempt to keep both parents in the children’s lives. The primary factors that the courts will look at when determining the custody can include:
What is a Premarital Agreement, and Why Are They Important?
A couple’s wedding day may very well be one of the happiest days of each partner’s life thus far. This happiness can be traced back to the fact that many months and sometimes years go into planning a wedding, often down to each minute detail. However, planning for a wedding and marriage are two entirely different things. Preparing for marriage can involve many responsibilities, few as crucial as preparing for the financial implications of getting married.
It is becoming more common for couples to negotiate and sign a premarital agreement or prenuptial agreement. These agreements are invaluable tools that spell out how a couple will handle debts, assets, and other financial issues if they decide at some point to get divorced. While some find these agreements to be “unromantic,” this is not the intention of such agreements. However, suppose you and your partner are considering marriage. In that case, it may be wise to consult with an experienced attorney trained in helping couples secure financial security and remove doubt about who will get what in the event of a future divorce.
Navigating a Changing Household During Divorce in Kane County
Divorce can be a challenging period of life for all parties involved. This can be compounded if the couple filing shares underage children. Though it can be easy to get swept up in your emotions and remain distracted by all the legal proceedings and unexpected life changes, it is imperative to continue to give extra support and attention to your children during divorce. Van Larson Law focuses on navigating you through your divorce in the most effective and stress-free manner. A significant aspect of that is providing you with the resources available to help your children during the transition.
Five Tips for Helping Children Adjust During Divorce
During a divorce, children undergo many changes very rapidly. These changes in a child’s life can result in adverse childhood experiences. Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, can be traced to be the root of many challenging health and social problems later in life. A parent’s need to provide for and protect their children always comes as a top priority, but it can be difficult for one person to juggle all of the changes in their own life while giving the proper attention and support to their children. It could also be uncharted territory for the parent and they may be unsure of how to navigate the shift in their daily routine.
Five Important Areas You Must Address in Your Illinois Divorce Decree
Approaching divorce for the first time can feel intimidating. Not only is there a lot to do, but the outcome of every little detail has the potential to impact your future in a major way. Fortunately, many people before you have tackled divorce and come out the other side in one piece. And with the help of a great attorney, you can do the same. Here are five important areas you will need to address in your Illinois divorce.
Property and Debt Division
All marital property and debt must be divided between spouses before a divorce can be finalized. Generally speaking, everything that was acquired by either spouse - including income, purchases, and credit card debt - will be considered marital property and must be divided equitably. Illinois is not a community property state, so the focus on dividing debt will be fairness rather than sameness.
Spousal Support
Can I Move With My Minor Child Before My Divorce Is Finalized?
Once an Illinois couple with minor children decides to file for a divorce, one parent usually moves out of the marital home. Sometimes this relocation is local, but other times it may make sense to move further away, especially if there is a job change or a parent wants help with the children from their extended family. But while parents can move anywhere with their children while they are married, they are far more restricted about where they can go during and after divorce. If you are getting divorced in Illinois and want to move with your child, seek help from an experienced family law attorney.
Relocating During Divorce
Parents in Illinois who have a majority of parenting time can ask to relocate with their minor child after a divorce is over and a parenting agreement has been created. But until a divorce is finalized, neither parent has majority parenting time. This means parents cannot move away from their address at the time of divorce with a child without a judge deciding such a move would be in the child’s best interests.
How Can an Illinois Collaborative Divorce Benefit My Family?
Divorce can be a long, stressful, and tedious process. Collecting paperwork, paying for attorneys, managing child visitation schedules, and waiting until the next available court date is incredibly burdensome. For many couples, a strategy called collaborative divorce can help mitigate the unpleasantness of the divorce process. While it may not entirely rid spouses of the logistical difficulties of getting divorced in Illinois, it does make the process far less contentious and more likely to produce an outcome both parties are satisfied with. To learn more about how collaborative divorce could benefit you and your family, read on.
How Does Collaborative Divorce Work?
The intention of collaborative divorce is to build a strong team of divorce professionals who assist a family as they transition through the divorce process while keeping conflict to a minimum. To that end, each spouse will have their own attorney who is committed to seeing the couple’s differences successfully resolved. Other professionals include child psychologists, child custody specialists, family therapists, financial advisors, and any other experts that can help spouses resolve conflict and create a beneficial divorce decree.
How Should We Communicate Once Our Illinois Divorce is Finalized?
Illinois couples frequently get divorced because they struggle to communicate productively. Unfortunately, communication between high-conflict couples does not always get better once a divorce is finalized. But when a couple shares children, effective communication continues to be essential for many years to come as parents navigate the daily hurdles of school, extracurricular activities, healthcare, and more. If you are going through a divorce and hoping to maintain healthy communication habits throughout your co-parenting experience, here are some tips from divorce experts that may help.
Communicate in Writing Whenever Possible
Avoiding in-person discussions, including phone calls, helps many high-conflict couples avoid situations that can quickly escalate. Divorced spouses tend to be quite good at pushing each other’s buttons and in-person communication allows couples to easily fall into old communication patterns that involve contempt, sarcasm, or dismissiveness. Instead, experts suggest communicating only in writing. Email is the best option for this because it is less urgent than text messaging and allows both parties time to cool off between responses. It also allows both parties to keep each other’s messages, which can make everybody think more carefully about what they say.
How Can You Dissolve a Civil Union in Kane County, Illinois?
Before same-sex marriage was made legal across the United States, gay and lesbian couples could enter into civil unions in Illinois along with their heterosexual peers and share the same rights as married spouses. But like all long-term relationships, not all civil unions last and when a couple decides to break up, the union must be dissolved. If you are in a civil union in Illinois and are contemplating separating from your partner, you may want the help of an experienced civil union dissolution attorney. Here are three common questions about dissolving civil unions in Kane County.
How Do We End Our Civil Union?
Ending a civil union is very similar to ending a marriage. A partner wanting to dissolve their civil union will need to submit a Petition to Dissolve a Civil Union to the local court and, just as with divorce papers, the petition will be served to the partner. And similar to a marriage, certain issues need to be resolved: spousal support, marital asset division, and, if there are minor children, child support payments, parental responsibilities, and parenting time.
Map and Directions
