Owner: Massachusetts Divorce & Family Law Blog URL:http://massachusettsfamilylaw.blogspot.com Join Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:42:09 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Boston area attorney Steven Ballard discusses recent developments in divorce and family law, and related issues, with a primary focus on Massachusetts. Site statistics:Click here
Divorce and Estate Planning 2008-03-08 08:33:53 All individuals who happen to be going through divorce should get an estate planning attorney to prepare for the future by helping them to plan and draft some basic estate planning documents, usually at or near the end of the divorce process. In fact, it is best to see an estate planning attorney before the divorce judgment becomes final.
For an excellent primer on this issue, please read Read more:Estate
Bobby Brown and Incarceration Nation 2008-03-07 23:12:36 The Worcester Telegram & Gazette News got it spot-on in its editorial today about the sweet, strange deal BobbyBrown
received in Brockton District Court. It's almost as if the Telegram read my eerily similar post on this subject from several days ago. Let's just say we are definitely on the same page here. I would now just add that we should ask ourselves how it is that Bobby Brown
is actually
Oral Arguments Heard in California Same-Sex Marriage Case 2008-03-07 05:30:42 The oral arguments in the California
Supreme Court's same-sex marriage case were heard a few days ago, on Tuesday, March 4, in a full three and a half hours of arguments, and now can be seen on the The California Channel (click on March 4, California Supreme Court: Same Sex Marriage). If, like me, you don't have the time or inclination to watch the whole thing, you can instead read Dale Read more:Heard
Joint Custody Presumptions - And Now For The Opposing View 2008-03-06 10:15:01 While we in Massachusetts are debating, most recently in the Boston Globe, the wisdom of the proposed joint custody presumption here in Massachusetts, it seems the legislature of Minnesota is studying a similar proposal in that state. In Minnesota Divorce and Family Law Blog: Joint
Physical Custody Presumption Subjected to Study, Minnesota divorce lawyer Gerald Williams points out many reasons
Parents Should Have An Information Binder 2008-03-04 11:56:51 Massachusetts estate planning attorney Leanna Hamill has recently posted an entry on her blog discussing the advisability of all parents' keeping an information binder with important information in it, to be left with babysitters, family members, or anyone else entrusted with the care of their children while they are away from home. See Massachusetts Estate Planning and Elder Law: Information Read more:Parents
Bobby Brown - Do We Want Him Here or Not? 2008-03-02 23:40:27 As just reported here in Boston - see Boston Globe: BobbyBrown
agrees to community service and Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog: Singer Bobby Brown
Forgoes Jail Time for Community Service Over Alleged Cocaine Possession - Bobby Brown will now do community service here after being arrested for alleged drug possession, per the terms of disposition in a Brockton District Court criminal matter.
Wait a
Shared Parenting Bill: Some Responses to the Boston Globe 2008-02-28 18:29:20 Just a bit more on the issue of shared parenting presumptions, the shared parenting bill, and the BostonGlobe
's recent editorial, which I criticized the other day here. In the following two letters to the editor, Paul Sawyer of Westford and Donald Miller of Boston both made some very good points. I especially like Donald Miller's analysis, which is in most respects just a more concise, and Read more:Parenting
Bush, McCain, Big Oil, Tort Reform, and The Supreme Court 2008-02-28 17:16:24 If you're interested in some real journalism, and would like to read a really great article that manages to deal with Exxon, Bush, McCain
, the US SupremeCourt
, taxes, tort reform, and many other things we should all be concerned with, you have to read the latest article from probably our nation's best reporter, Greg Palast:
Exxon suxx. McCain duxx.
No, this is not the common kind of " Read more:Reform
, Big Oil
, Supreme Court
New York Trial Judge Will Allow Lesbian Couple to Divorce There 2008-02-27 10:57:00 One trial court judge in New York
has just decided that a lesbian couple married in Canada can indeed divorce in New York. See New York Divorce Law Blog: Lesbian Couple Married In Canada Can Divorce In New York and for a bit more detail on the case see GLBT Couples Law: NY Court Allow
s Same-Sex Divorce to Proceed. The judge in this case relied on a recent decision from the New York appellate Read more:Trial
, Judge
Fairness for Fathers -The Boston Globe Weighs In, But Doesn't Really Get It 2008-02-25 20:11:11 The BostonGlobe
yesterday opined on the shared parenting bill, introduced by State House Representative Colleen Garry, a Dracut Democrat, and cosponsored by about 50 other legislators, including many of the legislature's most thoughtful and courageous members, as well as the progressive Fathers
& Families organization. In A fair role for fathers - The Boston Globe, the Boston Globe
Arizona Republicans, Drug Abuse, and Hypocrisy 2008-02-23 13:43:23 QUESTION: What do John McCain and the late former Chief Judge William Rehnquist have in common besides that they were both Republican political hacks from Arizona
? (Oh, did you think Rehnquist was just our former Supreme Court Chief? Well, he had a not-so-well-known role as a Republican hack challenging Hispanic and African-American Democratic voters in Phoenix, long before he became the Read more:Republicans
, Hypocrisy
More Massachusetts Legal Blogs 2008-02-23 13:42:46 Thanks to Doug Cornelius of the Real Estate Space Blog for providing a rather long list of Massachusetts
Blawgs, much longer than the one I recently posted here. His list includes lots of blogs I have not yet read, but which I will certainly try to explore soon.
For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website. Read more:Blogs
Federal Judges in Massachusetts Are Releasing Crack Offenders After Sentences Were Retroactively Reduced 2008-02-23 09:12:40 As reported a few days ago in the Boston Globe, federal judges in Massachusetts
are now releasing several prison inmates pursuant to the federal government's retroactive reduction in sentences for crack offenders. If you read this Boston Globe article, you should know that the newspaper yesterday issued a correction to point out that its headline and first paragraph inaccurately stated that the Read more:Federal
Supreme Court to Hear QDRO Case 2008-02-21 08:06:27 The US SupremeCourt
has accepted a case involving a question regarding Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDROs). In the case from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court
granted cert on the following question only: "Was the Fifth Circuit correct in concluding that ERISA’s Qualified Domestic Relations Order provision, 29 U.S.C. § 1056(d)(3)(B)(i), is the only valid way a
Mothers, Fathers, Families & Gender Issue Blogs 2008-02-19 11:30:53 Following up on my recent post, in which I recommended two very different blogs, one from fathers and the other from feminists, I now want to supplement that post by listing several other blogs that are contributing, in their own particular way, to the dialogue we should be having on gender issues - issues that should be of concern to anyone in the family law field, and, for that matter, anyone Read more:Fathers
, Blogs
, Mothers
, Families
Sex Toys Now Legal in Texas 2008-02-17 12:39:35 I like to joke that our nation owes a huge debt of gratitude to the legislature of Georgia for aiding in the development and refinement of civil liberties and constitutional law. More recently, however, we have the Texas
legislature to thank.
Less than five years after the US Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law, in Lawrence v. Texas, on 14th amendment substantive due process grounds
Indigent Parents In CHINS Cases Now Get Free Attorneys 2008-02-16 18:37:35 The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) recently looked at two CHINS (children in need of services) cases, one from Worcester County and the other from Essex County, in both of which a juvenile court judge had denied a mother legal right to court-appointed counsel. The SJC ruling in this consolidated case In the Matter of Hilary has now established that parents in these cases do indeed Read more:Parents
, Attorneys
Military Deployment Often Means Loss of Custody to the Other Parent Back Home 2008-02-16 15:16:14 This morning I just heard, on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, the following feature story about a female soldier who lost custody of her child after she was deployed to Iraq: NPR, Morning Edition, February 14, 2008: "Soldier Loses Custody of Child After Iraq Tour". The story discusses the vulnerability of deployed military men and women, especially during a time of war, when they happen Read more:Military
, Deployment
, Often
, Means
, Parent
Wal-Mart - Health Care Reformer? 2008-02-13 08:51:59 From Massachusetts attorney David Harlow at the Health
Blawg comes this interesting new post about Wal-Mart, discussing Wal-Mart's purpurted innovations in the health care business: HealthBlawg: Wal-Mart: The 51st State?:
"When it comes to health care reform, I've long held the view that we should let the states act as laboratories, experimenting with new and different approaches to health care Read more:Health Care
California Supreme Court To Hold Hearing on Gay Marriage 2008-02-12 22:48:31 From Jeffrey Lalloway at the California
Divorce and Family Law Blog, comes the news that the California SupremeCourt
will hear oral arguments on gay marriage on March 4.
Excerpts from the California Divorce and Family Law post:
"The pros and cons of same-sex marriage will get an airing here March 4 in oral arguments before the California Supreme Court, the court announced Wednesday. In dispute Read more:Hearing
, Gay Marriage
McCartney Chainsaw Massacre 2008-02-11 21:39:00 Thanks again to English family lawyer John Bolch and his Family Lore blog, for helping us here on the other side of the Atlantic to keep up with the ever-fascinating McCartney
-Mills divorce.
In his recent post Family Lore: The Bishop, the Beatle and the Beards, Bolch points to another wonderful English family law attorney and blogger, Marilyn Stowe, whose Marilyn Stowe Family Law and Divorce
McCartney v. Mills & Mills v. Her Lawyers 2008-02-08 07:06:00 Check out the Family Lore blog's recent post on the McCartney
-Mills
divorce: Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy. Apparently the McCartney-Mills divorce saga has still not ended with an agreement between Paul and Heather. In fact, it seems Paul and Heather may be going to court next week for a five-day hearing to resolve their divorce, and in that important proceeding Heather may continue to be Read more:Lawyers
Obama: Help Him Win! 2008-02-08 06:28:40 From the Obama
website: Obama Wins Super Tuesday: Wins Most States, Wins Most Delegates:
"Campaign Manager David Plouffe...
By winning a majority of delegates and a majority of the states, Barack Obama won an important Super Tuesday victory over Senator Clinton in the closest thing we have to a national primary. From Colorado and Utah in the west to Georgia and Alabama in the south to Senator
Two Great Blogs - From Feminists and Fathers 2008-02-06 17:00:49 At the risk of offending everyone, I want to recommend two very different blogs I regularly read. They are so different that they may in fact appear to be polar opposites. One is a group blog with lots of interesting posts by self-described feminist law professors: Feminist Law Professors. The other is the blog of the Massachusetts-based Fathers
and Families organization, written by its Read more:Blogs
, Great
, Two Great
New York Appellate Division Recognizes Canadian Gay Marriage 2008-02-06 09:44:52 Thanks to this recent New York
Divorce and Family Law Blog post for reporting on the recent New York Appellate Division
(intermediate level state appellate court) case of Martinez v. County of Monroe, which recognized a same-sex marriage of a lesbian couple which had been performed in Canada, and gave it effect in New York, despite the fact that New York, like all U.S. states save Massachusetts, Read more:Gay Marriage
, Canadian
Vermont Blogger Can Air Dirty Laundry, But Can't Snatch and Scan Wife's Journal 2008-03-12 23:18:54 I want to follow up on the recent story about the Vermont
divorce case in which the angry husband chose to vent his frustrations and anger at his wife and her lawyer on his personal blog, after which the divorce judge ordered him to take down "any and all" internet postings related to his wife and his marriage. (My original post is here.)
Apparently the judge came to his senses in a subsequent Read more:Blogger
, Laundry
, Snatch
, Journal
UK Family Law Blogs 2008-03-12 09:04:46 One of my favorite family law blogs, Family
Lore, written by English family lawyer John Bolch, has recently posted the following Family Lore: UK Family Law Blog Review, which is a brief look at family law blogs in the UK (in fact, Bolch actually gives a complete list and description of all such blogs he could find). The legal system and practice in the UK is different from that which we have Read more:Blogs
Lawyers for Britney and Kevin Rack Up More Fees Arguing About Who Has To Pay Them 2008-03-11 21:23:47 In Hollywood News, this past weekend Britney
's ex Kevin
Federline played golf with Britney's dad Jamie, and then on Monday (yesterday), Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's lawyers argued again in court about who has to pay K-Fed's legal fees in their ongoing custody case.
It's not fair that K-Fed's lawyers are increasing their rate to $600/hour, says Britney's $700/hour lawyer. Blah, blah, Read more:Lawyers
Heather Mills to Get £24.3 in Assets 2008-03-17 13:37:49 Heather Mills
will get £24.3 million in assets (approximately 50 million U.S. dollars), per judgment in her divorce with Paul McCartney. See Family Lore: Money (That's What I Want), and The Times article of today. This judgment may not be the end of the matter, however.
For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website. Read more:Heather
, Assets
, Heather Mills
Predatory Lenders, George Bush and Eliot Spitzer 2008-03-17 13:00:49 "When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the Read more:Lenders
, George
, Eliot
, Spitzer
, George Bush
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