It is impossible to get blood out of a stone. So said Vicesimus Knox, whose name sounds like a James Bond villain but who was in reality an English essayist. Knox wrote this proverb in 1788, though many a Virginia man facing child support payments knows it is still true. Exactly what do you have to provide? And what can ...
Three public institutions of higher learning offer degrees in Latin. Understanding Latin could come in handy if you want to be an attorney, since words like status quo are everywhere in legal texts. The status quo in Virginia law means “the existing state of affairs.” What could that have to do with Virginia divorce? The answer is another Latin term: ...
This article is a part of our Family Law 101 series. Jump to a Section Separation Definition How to Separate Legally The Code of Virginia & Separation How to Prove Separation Divorce from Bed & Board Separation Agreements What to Include in a Separation Agreement When to Contact a Divorce Attorney Separation Definition Separation in Virginia means to live “separate ...
Child custody cases can become legal nightmares, as in the case of Virginia’s own Lisa Miller, who fled the country with her daughter more than 10 years ago, supposedly on the advice of her counsel at the time. You can avoid upending your life, your ex’s life, and the lives of your children with a piece of paper, the consent ...
Virginia offers separating and divorcing parents several options with child custody. The law reads, “The court shall consider and may award joint legal, joint physical, or sole custody, and there shall be no presumption in favor of any form of custody.” One option is 50/50 physical custody, under which both parents enjoy their children half the time. But child custody ...
What’s the worst four-letter word? Nope, it’s not that one, that one, or even the c-word. It’s “just,” as in “I just want to make some adjustments to the materials, color scheme, timeline, and budget of my home remodeling project.” Ranking up there, too, are phrases like, “We could just make a few dozen changes to the legally binding agreement ...
We went to visit one of Virginia Beach’s psychic readers the other day. We knocked on her door. From somewhere inside she asked, “Who is it?” So we left. How good could she be? Anyway, even though child support calculations can seem to be the stuff of crystal ball gazing, they really are not beyond your abilities to understand. Let’s ...
Here’s a mathematical puzzle to nudge your noggin: how can you take $8,800 and turn it into $7.5 million? Ben Franklin knew the trick; he left $4,400 to Boston and the same sum to Philadelphia, leaving the heavy lifting to compound interest. Exactly 200 years later, Boston had a tidy sum of $5 million, with Philadelphia reaping about $2.5 million. ...
The Articles of Confederation, our nation’s first “constitution,” were badly flawed. Each state could have set up tolls and tariffs at its borders, so a sack of Virginia peanuts traveling to New York could have had an expensive and perilous journey. Today interstate laws provide for the smooth flow of goods and services between the states. That flow includes child ...