Guiding You Through Divorce
Divorce can be a painful process, but it can also be an opportunity to leave an unhappy situation and start over. My goal as a divorce attorney is to help you through every step of the divorce process so you can walk away with a fair outcome.
Whatever your priorities are, I will give you skilled counsel and representation focused on those priorities. Contact me to discuss how I can help you. I have offices in Fairfax and Forest, serving northern Virginia and the Lynchburg area.
Untangling Your Marriage Partnership
Currently, the general view of the Virginia family courts is that marriage is a partnership in which each partner makes contributions — some financial, some non-financial. When that partnership is dissolved, the court can determine what each person should receive from the partnership by looking at what each spouse contributed.
How the court goes about the process depends in part on whether you and your spouse are able to reach a divorce settlement on the relevant issues. If the court has to step in and resolve some or all of these issues, it will address each one separately, including:
The court will rely on different legal standards to resolve each of these issues. I understand the complex system of divorce laws and the latest developments in how the courts are interpreting them.
If you are going through a divorce, you need to know what to expect from the process and what your rights are. Contact me to get help from an experienced Virginia divorce lawyer.
The Relevance of Grounds and FaultUnder Virginia family law, the court requires a reason to grant a divorce. That "reason" is also known as a "ground" for divorce. Among the fault grounds for divorce are desertion, adultery and cruelty (where cruelty is generally interpreted to mean physical cruelty). If none of the above applies to you, you may need to go through a period of legal separation for up to one year before the court will grant a divorce. In these cases, the separation becomes the grounds for the divorce. Although issues of fault may be relevant to the grounds for the divorce, the court is typically less concerned with fault when it comes to other aspects of the divorce process. |
