Prenuptial agreements are not just for the rich and famous anymore. They have become almost de rigeur, particularly in second and subsequent marriages. “Once burnt, twice shy” is the guiding principle when contemplating a second union, since many hard lessons are learned after the dissolution of a marriage that was expected to last till death. Spelling out prospective needs and expectations prior to walking down the aisle forces a couple to communicate openly and honestly, especially in the area of finance. Hammering out an agreement can be a positive, trust-affirming exercise, and should not be viewed as a question of good faith.

Although violating the terms of a pre-marital agreement may cause a divorce, it can’t be used as grounds, since almost all states now have no-fault divorce laws, negating the need for reasons beyond incompatibility. Generally speaking, the court will honor the terms of the agreement and enforce those that pertain to finances and children, but will seldom delve into some of the more frivolous demands that are sometimes included. For example, it is highly unlikely that either spouse can be fined for withholding intimacy, gaining weight or failing to take out the trash – items which have actually been part of some agreements.

In addition to a couple’s financial situation, if children are involved, a prenuptial agreement will usually specify details of their care and welfare, which are almost always affirmed by the divorce judgment. Prenuptial agreements cannot supersede adjudicated financial support orders, but they can deal with such things as college education and similar issues that arise after a child reaches legal age. They can also address matters pertaining to religion, relationships with grandparents and other non-financial areas, relieving the judge of making those difficult, sometimes heartbreaking decisions.

It has been suggested that prenuptial agreements might be a factor in causing the high percentage of second-marriage divorces. The reasoning is that when a couple starts to regret the time wasted in failed marriages and begins to balk against growing old with the wrong partner, having the terms already spelled out greases the skids into easy divorce. Since twice as much baggage is involved in a second divorce, prenuptial agreements may be twice as necessary as they were the first time around and should be drawn up by two separate attorneys.

Source: www.aurora-law.com

Start by looking at your circumstances, if your divorce is simple then it is sometimes possible to do the divorce with very little help from a solicitor, but this is rarely the case. If you need a solicitor make sure that you find one with experience that is relevant to your particular case. For example if you have suffered domestic violence or abuse, then your solicitor should have experience in dealing with cases like yours. If children are involved you need a solicitor that has dealt with custody agreements in the past.

During the divorce process there is usually some points of conflict. If you can find a Resolution accredited solicitor, do so. There are 5,500 firms in the UK with this accreditation, so you should find one in your area. These solicitors are trained to stop disputes becoming acrimonious and to help clients to agree and solve their problems constructively. Their code of practice promotes a non-confrontational approach to family law, and in particular divorce.

Try to speak with 2 or 3 solicitors before choosing one. The majority of solicitors offer a free or fixed fee first consultation. At this consultation you can establish if the solicitor has experience which is relevant to your case. In addition, you can also see if you can work with this solicitor, it is vital that you feel you can communicate with your solicitor and that they can understand your point of view too. After speaking to 2 or 3 solicitors you will also better understand your situation and the options available to you.

At the initial consultation ask about costs, these vary considerably from firm to firm. Choose a solicitor that you can afford, so you do not struggle to pay the legal fees.

Source: www.leepriestley.com

Both parties still engage their own lawyer, so they both still get independent legal advice that makes sure each party is fully aware of their rights. Initially, each party meets with their own lawyer privately. If it is agreed to use the collaborative law process then a 4-way meeting is set up for both partners and their lawyers to attend. Before this meeting your lawyers explain the procedure and what you can expect at the meeting, so you will be well prepared.

The first meeting is to establish that all those involved agree to and fully understand the process. Both parties will sign an agreement that states that they are seeking a resolution or agreement without having to use a judge to decide on the divorce terms. The date time and format of the next meeting is agreed, including who will bring the necessary information to the next meeting, e.g. financial details. If any specialist advice is needed e.g. financial advice, it is agreed whether any advisers need to attend the next meeting and who will arrange for that to happen.

There will be several subsequent meetings at which the terms of the divorce will be agreed. These terms include arrangements for child custody, maintenance and the splitting of assets. Your lawyers will draw up the agreement and schedule a final meeting to sign the necessary documents and proceed with the divorce.

If at the final meeting any further action is needed, what this is will be agreed along with a schedule to ensure these actions are quickly carried out. If on the other hand everyone is happy with the agreement it will be signed there and then.

Both of the lawyers involved need to be specially trained in collaborative law. In addition to knowing the law they are trained to help their clients to remain calm, listen and to prevent the process becoming combative. This approach usually leads to a quicker and much less acrimonious divorce. They do not act as mediators, only as enablers. Generally the process works well, especially in cases that involve children who respond to the fact that their parents are calmer and less combative than other parents when going through a divorce.

Source: www.leepriestley.com

Tiger Woods and his estranged wife Elin Nordegren are close to divorce. A source close to the situation revealed that the divorce is imminent, telling Radar Online “They’ve agreed on all the major points. It’s all been worked out privately.”

“Both Tiger and Elin are very close to finishing the negotiations and filing and signing the paperwork,” the source further stated. Moreover, the professional golfer is said to hand over Elin $750 million in the settlement.

The source also shared about details of the divorce negotiation, stating “When they first started negotiating the divorce, it was very acrimonious. Elin had a lawyer in California who was very, very aggressive.” However, the source revealed, “Things are now very civil between Tiger and Elin – at least in terms of getting the divorce taken care of.”

Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren’s separation is apparently amicable, despite back on March 8, the estranged couple was spotted kissing for the first time in months. An eyewitness told the site, “They were hugging and they were kissing right out in the open. Elin is certainly a lot more relaxed these days and so is he. People in the neighborhood are getting used to seeing them together again.

When officials in California’s legislative departments received a petition from police detective John Pomroy of Pomona, near Los Angeles, they must have felt they were watching the latest instalment of Basic Instinct.

Unusual plea
Mr. Pomroy approached California legislators, in particular Democratic Assemblyman Marty Block of San Diego County, with a very unusual plea. He requested Mr. Block’s help in closing a particular loophole in Californian divorce law that had bitten him hard personally — the right to prevent your ex-wife from running off with a chunk of your life savings if she hires a hit man from a motorcycle gang to have you bumped off.

Yes, you read it right.

According to reports, Mr. Pomroy went through a contentious divorce back in 2002 and his ex-wife, after turning violent due to alcohol and drug abuse, lost custody of their two sons. She apparently also lost some of her appreciation for the law — and possibly her grip on reality.

Instead of seeking legal recourse, the former Ms. Pomroy approached members of the feared Vagos motorcycle gang in San Bernardino County to kill her ex. What she clearly did not bargain for was the gang members alerting the police. Policemen reportedly disguised as biker-assassins taped a conversation with the ex-wife, leading to her arrest and subsequent conviction for soliciting murder.

Think this is twisted? There’s more.

Given the oddities of the law in California, Mr. Pomroy’s ex-wife was actually able to claim half of his wealth because she had not tried to kill him herself.

In other words, hiring an even more efficient killer enabled her to get away with serving a mere 22 months in prison, and then collecting a cool $70,000 from her ex-husband’s estate in the divorce.

Mr. Pomroy commented on his attempts to get the law changed, saying: “This Assembly bill is not going to award me anything retroactively; I’m not looking for that … I’m just trying to prevent some poor sap in the future who goes through this, to prevent him from losing his assets to somebody that’s trying to kill him.”

Assemblyman Marty expects the bill to pass unopposed in the State Senate this week.

Source: Narayan Lakshman

In India, marriages are solemnized as a well-guarded union.

But the country has now moved to at least unshackle divorce.

Officials Friday announced measures to stem delays in seeking an early end to failed alliances.

India’s federal cabinet approved “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” as a ground for couples to part ways, information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni told reporters.

Under original Hindu marriage laws, both estranged partners have to appear at court proceedings for settlement of their lawsuit for divorce by consent.

But it’s not uncommon for a petitioner to skip tribunal dates deliberately in order to keep the case dragging in India’s notoriously sluggish legal system, authorities acknowledge.

“This has been causing considerable hardship to the party in dire need of divorce,” Soni said.

Officials believe the new legislation, now due for clearance by parliament, will eliminate harassment of either party in the case and abuse of the existing law on dissolving marriages.

There was no official data on divorces immediately available, but matchmakers say four in hundred marriages fail in India.

With the country transforming into a modern economic powerhouse, divorce is increasingly been seen as an acceptable way out of unsatisfying relationships.

“Divorce doesn’t seem to be biased any more. It’s uniform among all castes, cities and income groups,” said Vivek Pahwa, the head of SecondShaadi.com, a marriage bureau for second-timers.

Pahwa’s portal aims at India’s Internet-using divorcees, widows and widowers. More than one-fourth of his clients, he says, are women, especially in jobs.

“It’s reflection of financial independence,” he remarked. He was referring to a growing number of Indian women joining workforce who he says refuse to remain trapped in unwanted marriages.

Indian laws allow limited one-sided separation.

Cruelty and desertion can serve as a premise for seeking divorce without consent.

Separately, the country has harsh laws to protect women, such as physical torture over dowries.

But data shows a surge in crimes against women.

Police across India registered 195,856 crimes against women in 2008, up from 140,601 in 2003, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Source: Cnn.com

Some wives find out about their husband’s infidelity when they discover love-sick emails in the inbox. Others when a credit card statement reveals an unknown hotel bill.

For Jacqui Getty, her friends say, it was a pair of earrings and women’s sunglasses in the kitchen, neither of them belonging to her.

Her husband Peter, an heir to the Getty fortune, denied that he was having an affair, but a full frontal shot of a woman the couple knew, which Jacqui found on his desktop, was harder to explain. And when Jacqui learned that the woman was living down the street, in a place she now believes her husband paid for, suspicion turned to rage, her friends say.

Welcome to one of the ugliest divorce cases Los Angeles has seen in years.

In one corner, the eccentric heir to a reported $2.5 billion oil fortune, with Bob Dylan-like curls and a penchant for knitting.

In the other, his charismatic, soon-to-be ex-wife, a stylist and costume designer, whose close friends include Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman.

“It’s like Dynasty, California edition,” says one person, who knows the couple.

When the two tied the knot in Napa in 2000, however, it had seemed like a fairy tale ending for a woman whose earliest years were marked by tragedy. As the San Francisco Philharmonic played in the background, the bride walked down the aisle in a $100,000 Oscar de la Renta gown, brought to the altar by movie director Francis Ford Coppola. Peter’s wedding gift was a Bulgari necklace worth $600,000, according to court records.

After the wedding, Peter and Jacqui lived in the Hollywood Hills and drove matching Mercedes S500s. There were limitless credit cards and private jet trips to the couture in Paris. The parties at their house, where the art collection included Pollacks and Basquiats, achieved almost mythical status among the Hollywood hipster set.

The family vacationed at the 10,000-square-foot Getty compound in Kona, Hawaii, and at the exclusive Malibu Colony. When the couple travelled abroad, Peter generally didn’t even pack. He simply bought what he needed once he reached his destination, Jacqui said in her court declaration.

“We had a lifestyle that I am certain is beyond what most people could imagine or will ever be able to enjoy,” Jacqui testified. “But as I was told, that was ‘just the way it is’ when your name is Getty.”

Unfortunately, there was a darker side to being a “Getty wife.”

Now, Jacqui is alleging that her husband was a cocaine addict, who abused her physically and emotionally, breaking her arm during a binge in 2008.  “He told me ‘I could kill you and get away with it,’” she said in a court document that also detailed allegations that he choked her, told her she was stupid and clocked hundreds of hours watching online porn.

In the divorce proceedings, Peter’s counsel is the high-profile attorney Laura Wasser, who has represented Angelina Jolie, Kiefer Sutherland and Britney Spears. She declined to comment for this story.

Jacqui, for her part, is represented by another big-league lawyer. Stephen Kolodny has litigated on behalf of Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand and David Caruso. He declined to comment for the story.
At stake is spousal support that could run to hundreds of thousands of dollars per month an a $20 million to $30 million San Francisco home they just built, along with extraordinarily expensive furniture, including a bed that alone cost $1 million, according to Jacqui’s declaration.

The soon-to-be ex-Mrs.-Getty came from more humble origins. As friends tell it, she had a latchkey New York childhood. Her mother was a former model and her dad a restaurateur, who abandoned the family when Jacqui was 12. After her father walked out, Jacqui and her mother moved to L.A., where Jacqui attended Beverly Hills High School, eventually meeting Gio Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola’s son. But when Jacqui was 19 and pregnant with their daughter, Gio was killed in a speedboating accident.

She met Peter a few years later and her friends were elated. Though she was notably more social, it was obvious from the get-go that her new boyfriend was smart and had a dry sense of humor. What’s more, Peter appeared to love her daughter, named Gia in honor of her dad.

A Harvard graduate, Peter had grown up in San Francisco, attended the opera from an early age, and lived in a mansion where the furniture was too expensive to sit on. Peter later wrote in a blog for the San Francisco Chronicle that “friends got to put posters of rock bands and Farrah Fawcett in their rooms. We had a scary oil painting of some pale woman standing in a barren field.”

And a skeleton or two lurked in those deep Getty closets.

According to friends of Jacqui’s, two of Peter’s brothers struggled with addictions. And just before Jacqui and Peter’s wedding, his mother Ann discovered that her husband Gordon, Peter’s father, had lived a hidden, parallel life, fathering three children with another woman during a 14-year-long affair. Although his parents didn’t divorce, Peter was severely affected by the revelation, says a friend.

As Peter struggled to find a professional identity, the family’s wealth proved more toxic than helpful. It was, as a friend put it, “a big, dark money cloud.” There was a short-lived publishing company in the ’80s, reportedly bankrolled by his mother; a record label, and talk of writing. But when Coppola hired Peter to write a movie, “he took the job and never delivered the script,” says a friend of Jacqui. Adds another friend: “He had all that money at his disposal—he didn’t need to do anything. He was like Henry VIII.”

When Gia went off to college in 2005, Peter’s drug use and erratic ways began to spiral out of control, according to court documents and friends.

Friends say Peter retreated from the world, into his converted garage. One friend says that in addition to using drugs, Peter spent hours knitting and playing computer games; another says Peter was addicted to internet pornography. “I called it his man-cave,” says the friend. “There were no windows or anything.”

In court, Peter has admitted using cocaine. But he denied being coked up that day in June 2008 when he allegedly broke his wife’s arm.

Jacqui, meanwhile, struggled with a substance abuse issue of her own. Friends say that she briefly became dependent on Vicodin around the time she had surgery for severe back pain, but note that she got help and now is free of drugs.

But while she could kick her own addiction, Jacqui was unable to convince her husband to go to rehab. “She was worried about Peter and she wanted him to get help. When she left, she thought the family would step in and say, ‘OK, go to rehab’ and…they’d get back together,” says a friend.

Says another: “I don’t think Jacqui thought they were actually going to get divorced. I think she thought this was going to be a reality check, but it didn’t work.”

Clearly not. As she says in court documents, he told her that “he wanted to live a ‘rock ‘n’ roll party life’ and that I would have to decide whether I wanted to stay married to him. His words were, ‘It’s my way or the highway.’”

Source: Independent.co.uk

Why “For Better Or For Worse” Doesn’t Really Apply

When they say those famous words at the marriage many people take them by word. “For better or for worse” only applies in unreal worlds, when in reallity it is completely different. Thinking your soul mate will stay with you for ever no matter what you do or become is really egoistic and weak minded. We all want to be believe that marriage is something permanent, but this is the reason why many people feel sorrowful and hurt with their marriage. Getting married does not mean you will be free to do whatever you want, even hurt people you love and stop taking care of yourself.

How To Really Know What The Problems Are

Many married couples fail to learn what is really causing their relationship to fade. Truly thinking about the problem instead of blaming other things takes some guts and most people are afraid to do it. Do you want to know why people fightat all? Fears make us feel the stress, that then makes us very moody and ready to fight. Know what your fears are, then by any means overcome them, this way you will find ways to save a marriage.

Knowing this, will point you into the right direction to find more ways to save a marriage. Being selfish and expecting your partner to be with you no matter what kind of person you become is very unreal. See the resource below to get more information on how to save your marriage.

Divorce lawyers

When confronted with a divorce, you don’t need to be a legal scholar to know the risks of going to trial and having a judge decide the issues in a court of law. Just talk to your friends and relatives who have been through a bitter divorce in the courts, or to any honest divorce lawyer. They will tell you that the costs, both financially and emotionally, of a court battle in a divorce can be ruinous, not only for the divorcing couple but also for their children.

A better choice is an out of court divorce settlement process. But which is the best way to go? Is it better to mediate, collaborate or just go to the most aggressive divorce lawyer around and tell him or her to resolve your divorce outside of court? Be wary of the aggressive divorce lawyer approach. Some of these lawyers, known as “bombers,” are overly aggressive at your great expense. They are, at heart, predatory animals that have an insatiable hunger. Their hunger is for money, and they know that the road to maximize their fees leads inevitably to the courthouse, just the place you wanted to avoid at the outset. More will be said about bombers later.

A better option is divorce mediation.  Mediation works when both spouses can negotiate on their own behalf, have a relatively equal balance of power in their relationship, and have shared values. Almost always, when a divorcing couple mediates they are “pro se,” meaning each spouse represents himself/herself without legal advice and without a lawyer.

The mediator remains neutral and may or may not be a lawyer. The mediator has the couple disclose their relevant financial information; helps them identify their needs and concerns, especially what is most important and meaningful to them; explains applicable legal principles (if the mediator is a lawyer), and brainstorms options and solutions with them in an effort to tailor a settlement that meets their needs and those of their children. Once an informal understanding for settlement is reached, the mediator urges each spouse to consult with his/her separate, independent mediation-friendly divorce attorney (known as “review counsel”) to review the formal divorce settlement agreement that is drafted by the mediator, and to give legal advice to the client.

Mediation is not appropriate for everyone. Many divorcing people need more legal advice and support than is typically available through mediation because the relationships between many divorcing spouses often contain serious power imbalances. Often one spouse has a stronger will or personality than the other, one spouse is more articulate and a better advocate than the other, and/or one spouse has more money, resources or information than the other.

Collaborative divorce is designed to remedy such imbalances, which otherwise could result in an unfair divorce settlement. In a collaborative divorce, each party is represented by a collaborative attorney, trained in the discipline of divorce mediation as well as collaborative law. Free divorce lawyers:

These attorneys provide legal advice and support to their clients during, and between, settlement conferences. Rather than starting a divorce action, an initial agreement known as a Participation Agreement is signed by the parties and their attorneys providing, among other things, that the parties shall not go to court, or threaten to do so, during the settlement process, and that the attorneys shall not be the litigators or trial counsel should negotiations nevertheless break down. Financial discovery and interest-based negotiations occur at four way settlement conferences attended by both spouses as well as their collaborative attorneys, and mediation techniques are used by the attorneys during these conferences.

The goal, as in mediation, is a settlement agreement tailored to satisfy the needs and concerns of both parties and their children. In inter-disciplinary collaborative practice, a team of collaborative professionals is available to help the parties. In addition to the lawyers, the collaborative team includes mental health professionals, such as divorce coaches and a child specialist, and a financial specialist.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBEiKHDe_0c

These other professionals, with greater expertise in their specialties than the lawyers, facilitate the settlement process while also being economical, as their hourly rates are usually significantly less than those charged by the lawyers. Some people mistakenly reject the collaborative process because of the attorney disqualification requirement: they don’t want to hire new lawyers to litigate their divorce if collaborative negotiations terminate without a settlement. This is almost always a mistake. Besides the obvious benefits of a collaborative divorce – avoiding the pitfalls of adversarial divorce litigation and obtaining the support and valuable input that most divorcing couples need from collaborative lawyers and professionals – one needs to understand the greed and viciousness of some divorce litigators in order to understand why the attorney disqualification requirement in a collaborative divorce can be so beneficial to the clients.

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