Blog Posts in November, 2014

How Do Florida Courts Determine Child Custody?

As a divorcing parent, perhaps one of your biggest concerns is losing custody of your child. There was a time, not that long ago, when Florida courts favored the rights of mothers and fathers did not have much chance of gaining custody of their children. However, these days, Florida courts have adopted a far more gender-neutral approach to child custody. Instead of presuming one parent is more ...

Imputing Income in Florida: Should You Be Worried?

In Florida, whether parents are married or not, they are expected to both take an active role in the care and support of their child. Occasionally, however, a parent will purposefully skirt his or her financial responsibilities and attempt to decrease his or her income to lower their child support obligations. Florida courts have zero tolerance for this kind of action and will impute income to the ...

Criminal Charges that Could Lead to Deportation

The recent influx of young migrants to Florida and other states, particularly those with large Mexican and Central American communities, has ignited considerable debate about how the U.S. handles its immigrant populations. The desire to bring immigrants into the full range of systems in the country, among them the legal, health care, work and school systems, has served to highlight the possible ...

Changing Your Child's Last Name After a Divorce

What’s in a name? For starters, a last name ties a person to a family. Most commonly, however, a last name specifically ties a person to his or her father and his family. This is conventional in many parts of the world, including the United States. But what happens when a couple divorces and the child no longer lives primarily with the father, and perhaps doesn’t even have contact with him? What ...