The legal word "consent" is often associated with intimate matters like sex, statutory rape and marriage. It also extends, though, to the often-inevitable outcome of sex: pregnancy. Women in Virginia have powerful rights to give or deny consent to the fathers of their unborn children, such as consent to attend prenatal appointments, consent to hear information from their obstetricians, and ...
The NBA has brought us a pulse-pounding history of slam-dunk wins, but for Virginia Dads, one slam dunk may turn you into Paul Pierce when Ron Artest pulled his pants down. Thinking you can stop paying child support when your kid turns 18? Not so fast. The “Age of Majority” … Not a Slam Dunk Bar room "lawyers" (your buddies who ...
Collegiate sports conferences attract a lot of fans, many advertisers, and real zeal around college stadiums, gymnasiums and courts. Sports conferences can be huge, as with the 15 powerhouses in the NCAA Atlantic Coast Conference, including our own mighty University of Virginia. Then again, some conferences are very, very small. Witness the Intercollegiate Fencing Conference of Southern California, which comprises a paper-thin seven ...
When you divorce your wife, you also divorce her family. That moment is a huge reset button for relationships. Any veneer of cordiality is ripped away. Any pretense to continue tolerating one another is sundered. After the divorce's legal clauses come out, the claws come out. What if your ex-wife's parents or siblings are deliberately trying to drive a wedge between ...
How will your life change after a divorce? Much like stopping smoking, your body will know immediately that you have shed some of the worry, stress, and apprehension you have been bottling up for months or possibly years. Other parts of your world change, too, like your taxes, finances, savings, and estate. One matter to tend to immediately: updating your ...
Sometimes in these pages we joke around a bit, get a little weird, or push a few buttons. Yet one area is always off-limits to those attitudes: children. Virginia's children are among the most helpless, fragile and innocent among us. Virginia's adults, and even more so Virginia's attorneys, have a high calling to protect Virginia's kids. Emergency custody hearings are ...
Who is a reasonable person? A reasonable person, simply put, can make commonsense decisions just as you or we would. We have handed the American legal system that legacy, in the form of a standard of behavior: what would a "reasonable person" do in this legal dilemma or that situation? What would that same "reasonable person" consider to be a "reasonable and ...
In Virginia, some parents have an interesting (if inaccurate) view of court documents. Apparently, they feel they are optional, as in, the parent can ignore the specific directions of a court. These same parents may feel "Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat" is a little bossy, or that advice not to look at solar eclipses is just fear-mongering. Imagine their surprise, then, to ...
The clothes wringer was invented in the 1880s by a woman, Ellen Elgin, and is still sold today. We mention it in passing because many of our clients feel as though their divorce has put them through the wringer, at least figuratively. After divorce, if you feel wrung out, twisted in knots, and a bit soggy, could counseling help? Counseling ...