Some people say they are born to be great parents. Others have great parenting thrust upon them. You know, like when a court tells you, "Straight up, you and your ex (or the mother of your children) have to go to co-parenting classes." The Circuit Court in Virginia that orders this is, essentially, driving home the reality that Virginia always keeps ...
You humbly drove your Toyota Corolla away from your tidy home in the suburbs, rejected and dejected. Your wife went from that sad separation to her divorce attorney and filed a protective order against you. You must stay away. But when you left the night was fast approaching, the weather howling, and you had only your North Face jacket, Tommy ...
Today's Latin lesson brings us the word “putativus,” which comes from a Latin stem meaning to believe or suspect. From this we get putative, as in Virginia's putative father registry. Lawyers love Latin. Putative means “generally considered or assumed to be.” As in, you are the child's putative father. How Virginia Birth Certificates Work We think of birth certificates as a legal magic wand, casting ...
A cornerstone of the Constitution enshrines states' rights, saying anything not specifically laid out in the Constitution by default falls to the states. This is why we have state control of education, fair housing, the death penalty, and marijuana laws. Sometimes we have conflict between federal and state law, and sometimes federal laws are enacted specifically to overrule states' laws. ...
You politely decline an invitation to have that second helping of banana pudding. That is not, legally, "right of first refusal," but nice try (and probably better for your pants). No, right of first refusal in child custody and parenting plans means the right for the non-custodial parent to be contacted when the custodial parent needs a babysitter, extended child care, and ...
Thomas Aquinas, medieval philosopher, offered two sides of one argument when he said, "It would seem that several angels can be at the same time in the same place. For several bodies cannot be at the same time in the same place, because they fill the place. But the angels do not fill a place..."1 This has morphed into the idiomatic ...
The astounding military leader, Alexander the Great, marched into Gordium in 333 BCE, encountered the much-ballyhooed Gordian Knot1, and sliced it apart with one swift swipe of his sword. While plenty of military men "tie the knot," many also need a way to untie their own Gordian knots. Divorcing a military spouse is more complicated than you might think. Kids, ...
Why an "A" for Effort? Effort begins with E; the traditional grading system does not even have an E. You can thank Mount Holyoke College, circa 1897, for letter grades. We are certain most of our loyal readers were Straight-A students, but imagine getting a C- on something. Not too impressive, is it? Virginia's "Shared Parenting Report Card" earns the ...
We are going to do you the courtesy of avoiding any reference to a certain Disney animated movie that begins with F and has r-o-z-e in the middle and ends in n, even if its name appears in our title. I think most Dads are a bit ... worn out? ... by that particular cinematic gem. But we do need ...