Is Divorce Always the Best Option?

July 31, 2016

When reconciling with your spouse no longer appears possible, you have several ways to end your marriage legally. Divorce is not always the best option. It may prove too final. Going through a lengthy, costly, and contentious legal process may not be necessary. You or your spouse may want to legally claim no marriage ever existed. 

Consulting with an experienced and caring Ohio divorce lawyer can help you weigh your options. Before you schedule an appointment, get a sense for which path you may want to follow by reading through these brief descriptions of the possible benefits of a legal separation, an uncontested divorce, a marriage dissolution, or an annulment. 

5 Reasons You Need a Vocational Expert on Your Divorce Team

July 28, 2016

An Ohio divorce attorney who cares about securing your requests for child support and spousal support will advise you to authorize the hiring of a vocational expert. Research and analyses performed by the vocational expert provide the numbers you and your divorce lawyer use to negotiate with your soon-to-be ex-spouse and, if necessary, make your case in court. 

How to be Approved for an Adoption in Ohio

July 28, 2016

Working with an experienced, knowledgeable, and caring Ohio family attorney while going through a legal adoption process always makes sense. Procedures, paperwork, and qualifications vary depending on which person wants to adopt and whether the potential adoptee is a grandchild, stepchild, foster child, orphan, foreign child, or person over the age of 18 who could benefit from the establishment of a legally recognized parent-child relationship. The overarching considerations will always be the benefit of the individual getting adopted and the ability of the person or people making the adoption to care for the adoptee. 

Alternatives to Taking Family to Court

July 26, 2016

Few people relish the idea of taking a spouse, brother, sister, child, or parent to court to resolve a legal dispute. The time, cost, and contention can seem too much to bear. But what else can one do when a disagreement over property, financial assets, child custody, or some other essential matter cannot be settled through discussion and compromise? 

The family law attorneys with Edward F. Whipps & Associates offer help with three major alternative dispute resolution approaches. We briefly describe these below. Other options also exist, but all proceed from a basic agreement among the parties to the dispute that staying out of court and reaching a conclusion everyone can live with represent primary goals. 

How Personality Disorders Can Influence Child Custody

July 20, 2016

A personality disorder lies at the heart of the difficulties that lead many married couples to separate. Self-serving, odd, and sometimes harmful behaviors arise from the ways personality disorders cause a wife or husband to view and interact with the world, themselves, and others. Each situation is different, but the result of spending years living with and trying to accommodate an individual who can be capricious, mean-spirited, uncaring, paranoid, accusatory, duplicitous, or quick to anger can, understandably, become too much to bear. 

Children of parents with personality disorders suffer alongside spouses, often without any understanding of why their mother or father treats them coldly or cruelly. Divorce courts and judges recognize this, so they prefer to grant custody to a parent who does not show signs of a personality disorder. Accordingly, a man or woman who cites mental and emotional problems in a divorce petition should work closely with a child custody attorney who knows how family law treats personality disorders. 

The Top 3 Reasons to Choose Dissolution Over Divorce

July 1, 2016

Ending a marriage in Ohio by going through the dissolution process can limit tensions and reduce expenses. To deliver those benefits, however, both partners must commit from the beginning to act respectfully, communicate honestly, and strive to build on points of agreement rather than exploit differences. When spouses observe those principles, dissolution has three distinct advantages.