Going through a divorce is never easy. And it gets more complicated when children are involved. If you are going through a divorce and need family law representation, you’ll want to secure a reputable lawyer who is known to win child custody cases. If you’re wondering do I need an attorney for child support? This depends. If your ex-spouse is not paying child support, you may need to bring them to court to get them to pay. This can be filed at any child custody office. There are many men out there who have full custody of their children and are looking for child custody lawyers for men specifically. The best place to find free legal counsel for child support is online. Do a comprehensive search for child custody attorneys near you and give a call to a few lawyers in your area. Chances are they will listen to your case and offer some free advice during their initial consultation. It’s then up to you whether you want to hire an attorney.
Marriage is one of the world’s oldest institutions, and its traditional purpose is to unite a man and woman into a single household and raise children. This is still true today all over the world, and some nations have also legalized same-sex marriage as well. But divorce, the legal end of a marriage, has also become more common in many parts of the world, and statistics are carefully tracking how it happens. No one enjoys a divorce, but a divorcing spouse may get all sorts of legal help so that their side of the divorce is represented during divorce court. A family court can handle a divorcing household with children under 18 years old in it, and divorce attorneys can represent nearly any spouse during the divorce process. But divorce lawyers are not the only legal aids who may be involved; child support attorneys may be hired, too, and child support attorneys are common for households with minor children involved. What should someone know about hiring child support attorneys? And what about divorce in the U.S. as a whole?
Divorce Today
Many statistics are tracking American marriage and divorce alike, and the numbers show that around 40-50% of marriages today end with divorce. Why might this happen? Some common causes have been identified, and the top cause is infidelity, when one spouse is unfaithful to the other and is caught. The emotional trauma can be serious, and if marriage counseling does not fix the situation, then divorce papers might well be next. Both men and women cheat, but not always for the same reasons. And of course, domestic abuse is a common catalyst for divorce, when a spouse verbally, violently, or even sexually abuses other members of their household. A spouse who is abusing drugs or alcohol might also face divorce, as substance abuse greatly strains the household’s finances and can cause radical personality changes.
Not all divorces are this dramatic. Some divorces happen simply because the two spouses realize that they are not so compatible after all, and they agree to divorce. They might have very different lifestyles or spending habits, for example. Often, these low-intensity marriages might involve divorce mediators rather than lawyers, especially if the marriage has few assets to fight over. But what about cases where child support attorneys get involved?
Hiring Legal Help for a Divorce
When a spouse is prepared to file for divorce against the other, they may turn to local divorce law firms for help. This may involve looking up those firms and getting consultations from the attorneys who work there, which may or may not incur a fee. Once the spouse hires help, they may file divorce papers and bring the case to divorce court, though they may expect the other spouse to hire a divorce attorney of their own to defend their interests.
The two spouses might interact primarily through their spouses, and those attorneys will use the law to debate which client will get ownership of various assets, among other conditions of the divorce. Assets from the ending marriage such as bank accounts, cars, houses, vacation houses, and even family heirlooms or a privately owned business. If one spouse has been abusive, the other may have since moved to a private residence and brought their children with them, and that relocated spouse might interact with the other only through their attorney.
A divorce like this may involve children under 18 years old, and thus child custody lawyers and child support attorneys may be hired, too. The former may debate on which spouse may get custody of the children, and this might be settled in a family court. The other spouse might end up with some legal obligation to pay for child support to some extent, and child support attorneys will negotiate this. The child, if age 12 or over, may speak privately with the judge about their preferred living situation after the divorce.
What about mediators? Low-intensity marriages may be settled with a mediator’s help, a neutral third party whose job is to help each side produce constructive, fair, and clear ideas on how to handle the divorce. The two spouses will negotiate their own divorce, and this is often much cheaper and more private than going through court and hiring lawyers.