Long Island Divorce Blog: Contested Divorce

by Fred on February 4, 2012

  • Failure to Deal with Realities in Long Island Divorce -- Long Island Divorce Mediation as Alternative, Part 2 Divorce Mediation Is Successful With Full Financial Disclosure.   Obviously, the husband could have been presenting a partial picture; I told him that his initial failure to provide financial disclosure to his wife's attorney had probably cost him some ...
  • Failure to Deal with the Realities in Long Island Divorce -- Long Island Divorce Mediation As Alternative, Part 1 Divorce Mediation Appears to Be a Better Option than Divorce Litigation to Long Island Couple.   A couple came in to see me two weeks ago, hoping to avoid a disastrous litigated divorce. The wife already had an attorney; the husband is a lawyer -- not a...
  • How to Spend $10,000 and Get the Same result Anyway -- Long Island Divorce Mediation Would Have Been A Lot Cheaper. Financial Troubles Resulting From Serious Illness Bring Couple to Divorce Mediation.    In the middle of last year a couple came to see me to mediate their divorce. They were amicable, it appeared, at least at the beginning. The husband was an attorne...
  • Who to turn to for Advice -- Long Island Divorce Mediation? A potential client (let's call her Mary) came to me late last week with the following problem: her friends are all telling her to go for the jugular, hire the shark with the sharpest teeth, and rip her husband apart and take everything he has. Her therapi...
  • Financial Planning and Divorce -- Long Island Divorce Mediation Too often, in the emotional turmoil of divorce, the financial realities get ignored by everyone involved. You and your spouse are dealing with years of resentment and fear of the unknown. Your lawyers are using whatever legal maneuvers are available to ge...
  • You Need A Helper to Get Through Divorce - Long Island Divorce Mediation. Most people have not been through a divorce before. Suddenly your world is turned upside down. Couples you have been friendly with suddenly don't answer the phone -- not sure which side to take. Someone who you thought was a best friend suddenly takes you...
  • Abandonment Must Be Sexual, Not Social Once again, the New York Courts have held that grounds for divorce count; we do not have no fault divorce and the Courts will not make it up. The Second Department Appellate Division, sitting in Brooklyn, held in Davis v. Davis that "The plaintiff's al...
  • It Still Takes Two to Tango. I had a second couple come in during the past two weeks where the wife was all set to go with divorce mediation for a separation and the husband had come in to participate but had a completely different view of what he was there for. He was willing to ...
  • Ex-Wife Not Forced to Pay Husband's Legal Fees for Divorce Tactics Justice Robert A. Ross, of Nassau Supreme Court, has refused to award legal fees to the investment banker husband for his wife's "stonewalling" and "manipulation" during their divorce proceeding. Mr. Molinari, in Molinari v. Molinari alleged that his wife...
  • Getting Real in Divorce Mediation A couple came in this past Saturday, at 5:00 pm, to begin the process of Long Island divorce mediation. Now, ordinarily, I would not meet with people at 5:00 pm on a Saturday, but the wife was insistent and the husband was unwilling to come in during the ...
  • Court holds that Parents Could Not Agree to Stop Child Support for Minor The Appellate Division in Manhattan has ruled that parents cannot agree in a separation agreement to a definition of emancipation of a child that is narrower than that provided by the New York state statutes. In Thomas B. v. Lydia D, the parents had agree...
  • Is it a Business or a Job?, Part 2 In my previous post I discussed some of the basis issue in evaluating a small business in a divorce. We left off at the suggestion of using a business appraisor to evaluate a small business that has a few years of audited accounts and a history of busines...
  • Is it a Business or a Job?, Part 1 A common set of facts in a divorce mediation on Long Island is that one of the parties -- typically the husband, has what both he and his wife call a small business. It might be a landscaping business, or a remodeling business, or a construction business....
  • Court holds Sept 11th Compensation Award is Separate Property The Appellate Division for the Second Department recently held (October 5, 2009), in Howe v. Howe, that a September 11th Victim Compensation Award was 100% the separate property of the fireman-husband, even though some portion of the award was for economi...
  • The "Myth" of Divorce Mediation I read an article today on the Internet called "The Myth of Divorce Mediation", published by one of the major divorce law firms on Long Island. It's basic premise is that mediation sounds great in theory, but in practice you will get hurt and would be muc...