There was a useful nugget here from January's ISBA Bar Journal. The piece includes appropriate admonishment of lawyers to not take sides in a divorce. And also to control your client...don't go along with what he says.

The crux of piece focuses on important issues of IL family law...i.e. that we're a so-called No Fault state. If you've lived separate and apart from your spouse for two years, you can get divorced without any other reason. Also, conduct is not supposed to be considered regarding custody unless the conduct somehow effected the child.

Remember (from the article)...

The moral issue is often, if not usually, of great significance to the "innocent" party. This is understandable, and you should acknowledge your client's feelings. The Judeo-Christian tradition is that wrongs are punished. Often the client feels robbed of closure because his or her ex is not punished.

But Illinois law is a no-fault state. We lawyers should not lose our objectivity by over-identifying with the client. Doing so only magnifies any unrealistic expectations the client has about the outcome.

As an aside, there's nothing more wasteful and upsetting than an opposing attorney/client who's out of control or who's expectations haven't been "shaped" by a competent attorney. I've had a couple cases recently where the opposing client has started yelling at my client and sometimes at me...totally inappropriate and not professional.

This is real proposed legislation folks:

Family law courts House Bill 397 (Flowers, D-Chicago) requires the chief judge of each circuit to establish a separate family division to hear all family law cases (custody, child support, or State action concerning fitness). Authorizes a right to trial by jury in family cases.

Nothing like adding a little fuel to the fire in the tranquil world of family law, right?

Here's another poignant piece from the Times regarding grandparent custody/visitation issues related to the 9/11 attacks. It's a hot issue everywhere.

Just sort of a general interest piece from the Times today regarding the fact that now 51% of all U.S. adult woman do not live with a spouse. This is the first time this figure has accounted for more than 1/2 of all U.S. woman. It's essentially drive by three trends:

1. Woman outliving men (life-span issues);

2. Woman (and I suppose both genders) getting married later;

3. Higher divorce rate;

I don't think these trends are anything new...it's newsworthy only because it's more than half now. More thoughts on legal and public policy impact to come...

Interesting piece in the Times regarding decreasing levels of international adoptions as countries such as the Ukraine and Russia have become unstable.

This is just a little nugget about two very unique cases that I've dealt with in the last six months. One went for me and one against. The issue: did a court have jurisdiction over the party in a case originally so that it was proper for the court to rule on anything, such as child support?

The two cases I've dealt with recently were alleged back child support cases and in both cases, the father's have successfully found deficient service of process to get out of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars in back child support. If you're working with some one accused of not paying child support, look back at the entire court file to see if things were done right up front. It's a method to totally get out of alleged back child support OR to negotiate a low settlement figure. I'm in a position now to vacate a divorce judgment from 1985 because there wasn't good service of process up front. The opposing client may find herself married to my client all over again when she thought she got divorced 22 years ago!!

Remember, there are only three ways a court can obtain jursidiction to order someone to pay child support:

1. Service of Summons by the Sheriff or private process server;

2. Filing of a voluntary Appearance;

3. Participation in the litigation...i.e., 1 or 2 didn't happen but the party was active in the litigation.

If there's not one of these in place, you've got yourself a problem (or a defense) depending on your perspective.

Here's another piece regarding that grandparent visitation case...oral arguments were yesterday in Springfield.

Here's an interesting piece from The Peoria Journal Star regarding a pending grandparent visitation case before the Illinois Supreme Court. Briefly, the two childrens' father died and subsequently the mother has strictly limited the grandparents' visitation.

Question, do grandparents have a constitutional right to visitation with grandchildren if one of the parents says no?

Another chapter in the ever-changing Illinois grandparent visitation scene.

I've just become involved with a very interesting case regarding Section 513 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. Here's part of the statue:

Sec. 513. Support for Non‑minor Children and Educational Expenses. (a) The court may award sums of money out of the property and income of either or both parties or the estate of a deceased parent, as equity may require, for the support of the child or children of the parties who have attained majority in the following instances:

(1) When the child is mentally or physically disabled and not otherwise emancipated, an application for support may be made before or after the child has attained majority.

The big question is, what is "disabled"? The mother in this case is saying that the daughter is disabled with ADHD and some mild depression. It's early, but my gut instinct is that this is not "disabled" within the definition of Section 513.

Hi everyone. My name is Peter Olson and I'm an independent attorney in Chicago. Here's our firm's Website. I've started this blog to add my voice to a subject near and dear to my heart, the practice of family law in Illinois. A significant majority of my law practice is in the domestic relations field. I find it to be a rewarding field because the issues are important to people; it's not simply wealthy businesses and people fighting over small amounts of money in business transactions.

So come along for the conversation...comments are welcomed. I have two other blogs: Solo in Chicago and Closing Real Estate in Chicago.