This isn’t the first time we’ve spoken about adultery here. Adultery is one of those topics most people politely skirt with euphemisms and more left unsaid than said. Yet in a Virginia court, when claiming your wife committed adultery, you need to legally prove it. How do you prove your wife had sex with another person outside your marriage? Adultery ...
While struggling through the many twists and turns of a child custody case, you may encounter a term that seems ripped from television drama: forensic evaluation. Today the word “forensic” is most often associated with a crime, but its origin is from Latin and simply means “in open court,” or “public.” A court may order a forensic evaluation to determine ...
National Coming Out Day is October 11 (yes, that's the day this was published!), a tradition begun in 1988. Every year, lesbians and gay men find the courage to come out as homosexual, often to the shame and scorn of family and friends. Just as often, of course, they are supported and loved for their decision to share something so ...
A chasm is not a canyon. Consider the Grand Canyon, very deep but also very wide. Seeing it is awe-inspiring and humbling. Consider, though, a deep, narrow fissure, so deep you cannot see the bottom. It is far more terrifying than awesome. Couples facing marital separation may feel a wide canyon separates them, but the fear they feel really means ...
Don Denkinger probably wishes people had asked him to mediate first base instead of arbitrate it. His infamous blown call in the 1985 Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series allowed the Kansas City Royals to rally and take Game 6, forcing a Game 7, which they won against the St. Louis Cardinals. Denkinger was not asked for advice at first base; ...
Would you ever leave your children in a locked car in a parking lot, alone? Probably not. Would you ever go to a nightclub with your wife, but leave without her? Probably not. Final question: would you ever walk out the door, saying you were running to the store for milk and would be back in 20 minutes, only to ...
Two black holes collided more than a billion years ago, but the gravitational waves generated by the event did not reach earth until September 14, 2015. You might think such a monumental meeting would be a booming, mysterious — even frightening — sound. Not so. It is a cartoon sound effect1, reminiscent of a slide whistle. The collision of your ...
Few students of literature these days can easily recall Robert Frost’s Mending Wall1, but it begins with the famous “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” and ends with the ironic and eloquent, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Property disputes in divorce remind us of the sad irony and wistful despondency of Frost’s poem. The blithe neighbor in the ...
Virginia, sadly, has been the site of many battles throughout our nation’s history. From the 1610 Anglo-Powhatan Wars through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, our mighty state has seen a lot of clashes. It troubles us as attorneys that conflicts over child custody are routinely described as “battles.” A Virginia judge may, in fact, gauge your merit in a custody dispute based on ...