Old Blog Posts: October 2009

I spent a day at a training session for all of our divorce lawyers this week, designed by experts in their fields, to help us all better understand and support our clients. This was especially connected with the emotional issues of divorce and relationship breakdown. Actually, quite a few of our specialist divorce lawyers have suffered a divorce themselves. We are not immune, you know! The course led me to wonder if divorce law firms should employ counsellors to offer the more comple....

Myth: If my partner behaves badly or “messes around”, this will affect the outcome of our divorce. Reality: Let's get the wording safely understood, first! A "divorce", in law, means just the ending of the marriage legally and does not include any issues of money, house, or financial settlement. The bad behaviour might be part of the grounds for divorce mentioned, by way of "unreasonable behaviour". But in terms of the finances, it is very unlikely that the beha....

I read a serious discussion article today in The Times that says men are 7 times more likely than women to leave their spouse when that spouse becomes seriously ill. I am shocked. Of course, it's always easy to say "I wouldn't" before experiencing the horrors of that sort of situation but I think men should remember the phrase "for better for poorer, in sickness and in health". But what is the divorce law view of that? Could he divorce her? Grounds for divorce include unre....

Continuing our efforts to dispell common myths and misunderstandings about divorce and family law here's one that's relevant to all business owners and their spouses. MYTH: If we divorce I won't be entilted to anything from my partner's business. REALITY: You quite probably are entitled to something. It may be to a share of the income it produces, but much depends upon the nature of the business. You may have helped him to set up. You may have made a significant contribution to its success. T....

Family law has suddenly, it seems, attracted the attention of all the political parties! I will not bore you with their proposals for change (frankly, they don't add up to much except a lot of words) but these are some of mine: require couples to have a course of information and counselling before marriage (e.g. "how to argue"!) make prenuptial agreements clearly enforceable make the automatic rule on divorce to be 50/50 unless there is a prenuptial saying otherwise no f....

Perhaps one of the most complicated aspects of many divorce settlements is the treatment of the pensions accrured by one of both parties.  With the pension pot often forming the second largest capital asset in most marriages there can be significant sums at stake. Our new book - Exploring the Myths about Divorce and Separation - tackles a number of the most common myths including the things like the proportion of a pension that each party is entitled to.  It's a myth for example that ....