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 ...
You can be forgiven for thinking lawyers could write a 180-page handbook for using shampoo. Legal "briefs" tend to be anything but brief, and legal pads are deliberately three inches longer than regular pads because, well, words, words, words. So, when you examine a Virginia court's child support order, you may be surprised at how much is left out, considering ...
Representing yourself in court is almost always a bad idea, as Eric Saub found while acting as his own attorney.1 Saub ignored a judge's advice to accept free legal counsel, instead dismissing his attorney and handling his legal matters himself. At his murder trial. He was found guilty of the Isle of Wight County, Virginia murder and sentenced to 33 ...
Kevin Walter, Virginia turkey hunter, most definitely did not have custody of the charging bobcat1. The word "custody" means "immediate charge and control exercised by a person or an authority." While the bobcat may have charged, and while Kevin was clearly not in control, a bobcat is not an animal anyone wants to take into custody. Your children, though, are another ...
Technology is a marvelous thing. Some cities, for example, have an "online do-it-yourself" divorce program rooted in artificial intelligence. That's great, if you can get past all the questions that "screen out users with procedurally complicated situations;" and "screen out contested cases and those cases involving the potential, unintentional loss of rights." The courts recognize that some divorces are trickier ...
You don't usually think of children as property, but in a strange legal sense, they are. If you and your wife have children, you have a legal right to see, be with, and enjoy the company of your children. That simple legal fact means your wife cannot legally deprive you of them by taking them from you. Your children also ...
Congratulations, really, on your effortless, stress-free divorce. No surprises, everything went according to plan. All the loose ends are neatly tied up and you can get on with your life. What? That does not sound like the typical divorce? Of course it isn't — no divorce is "typical," and no divorce ends with all the pretty bows tied. Your divorce lawyer ...