If you are going through a divorce or contemplating leaving your spouse, it is very important to stay off of social media as much as possible. If you feel like you must create a social media post, make sure you NEVER use it to wage war against your spouse or co-parent. Unfortunately, Kanye West is not following this simple rule of thumb. Keep Your Fight Private Inviting the world into your personal issues is rarely a good idea. Passive-aggressive fights on social media show the world how unstable and immature you are and open the door to criticism which can fuel the fire. Your words will mo ..read more

When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case last Friday, it set into motion “trigger laws” in a number of states, including Missouri, which immediately made all abortions illegal. In Missouri, this abortion ban even includes situations where a woman (or child) becomes pregnant as a result of rape or incest. How Does the Missouri Abortion Ban Affect You? So, is there anything that we in Missouri can do? If you are in the St. Louis area, you are lucky, as Illinois has no bans or crazy restrictions, and women’s reproductive health services all o ..read more

DOES YOUR PHILOSOPHY MATCH WITH YOUR LAWYER’S? I recently withdrew from a case where my client was financially able and willing to pay me to do a lot of work. Unfortunately, I decided that it was the “wrong kind” of work for me. While lawyers often stick around in cases just because they are making money from the case, I realized it was not good for me to continue because my client and I had very different philosophies of what a divorce (or family law case) should be. There are often a lot of bad feelings at the end of a marriage. People are angry with their spouses over behavior during th ..read more

Can’t agree with your child’s other parent about a custody schedule, or who the kids should live with? Before you ask the judge to make a decision, effective September 1, you will need to participate in 2 hours of custody mediation, to see if you can get the situation resolved between the two of you. Many other counties in Missouri already have a custody mediation requirement, and it is a statewide rule in Illinois. Studies have shown that the parents are usually the best equipped to come up with a custody plan for their kids, and they are often able to do this with the assistance of a neutr ..read more

Co-parenting brings many decisions that need to be made during a child’s life, and they can be a challenge when parents disagree on these decisions. Navigating these decisions is based on your custody agreement. Who Decides When a Child Receives the COVID-19 Vaccine? That is going to depend on whether you and the Ex are sharing joint legal custody or not. Legal custody sets out how parents make decisions for the kids- medical, educational, religious, and other important areas of the child’s life. If either of you has sole legal custody, that parent will make these kinds of decisions until t ..read more

When people move on with their lives after a divorce and remarry, there can be some significant financial changes that may impact the previous spouse as well.   How it impacts you depends, more than anything, on whether there is a court order for maintenance (formerly alimony) or child support, or both. Marriage & Maintenance If you are paying maintenance to your former spouse, your dissolution judgment likely states that maintenance ends when he or she remarries. That is an easy one and should make you very happy for the newly married couple! There are some people that don’t ..read more

There is a lot of discussion in the news about schools reopening and whether kids will attend in-person, virtually, or a combination. While many are giving parents the choice of in-person learning or virtual learning, what happens if there is a choice and you and your child’s other parent cannot agree? Who Has Legal Custody? This is going to depend on whether you and your co-parent have joint legal custody or if one of you has sole legal custody. Legal custody has to do with making major decisions for your children. Major decisions are made by the parent or parents with legal custody.  ..read more

*Featured photo taken from https://wp.stlcountycourts.com/ Courthouses, even in the best of times, are like pools of germs. You have people from every walk of life in there, including people that are incarcerated, sick, old and young. Some people get all dressed up before they go to court, others don’t even seem to think it’s necessary to shower. Because of that, courthouses in Missouri are going to be a little behind many other businesses in the state to fully open to the public. The Missouri Supreme Court, in anticipation of the reopening of Missouri on May 4, issued guidelines for each co ..read more

The St Louis County Courthouse is still in a partial shutdown and not open to the general public. However, if you or your child has suffered abuse or feels threatened or afraid of your spouse, the child’s other parent or your partner, you should file a Petition for an Order of Protection as soon as possible. How to File Your Petition for an Order Protection Online: In St Louis County, Orders of Protection are considered to be “urgent matters”. Therefore, the courthouse has kept the Order of Protection office open if you need to go and file for one. Be prepared to go through some screening i ..read more

After two months of practicing law from home with college students, dogs, and crappy printers, I am finally starting to transition back to my office in Clayton. The traditional way of having meetings and consultations with lawyers has always (for clients) involved having to schedule the meeting, take time off work, drive to the office and park, and come up and sit in the conference room to have a conversation. For me, it involved setting it on my schedule, blocking out the conference room, and making sure that our receptionist had the correct forms for the client to fill out if it is an initi ..read more