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Social Media and Child Custody

Social media is present in most of our lives today. Whether you use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or some other social media outlet, most people freely post their comments and pictures without much thought about how the posts may affect them later.

Can social media affect your child custody case?

Many couples include their significant others on their friends list. Mutual friends may also have access to your social media page(s). Social media posts provide a mountain of evidence that can be used against you in court to prove that it is not in the best interest of the children to place them in your care, should issues relating to child custody and visitation arise later. Even an “innocent” re-post of a picture or comment you just believe is funny can be used to show your state of mind.

Social Media Posts and Your Character

For instance, e-cards and pictures relating to alcohol use are often used to prove that a parent has a drinking problem and/or is not stable enough to care for minor children. Additionally, posted statements or pictures relating to your case that are unflattering or places the other parent in a bad light may indicate that you are not the parent who will foster the parent-child(ren) relationship, thus causing you to have a reduced time-share with the children. This is especially true when your children are members of your social media pages.

While there are several other ways that social media can reflect poorly on a parent’s character and therefore their ability to parent, the important thing to keep in mind is to always be mindful of what you are posting on social media especially when you enter legal battles that involve child custody and visitation. Or you can simply turn off your Twitters and Facebooks until your divorce is finalized.

Who Keeps the Pet?

By Michelle Brooker

The strong bond between an owner and their pet cannot be understated. Whether we’re talking about a dog, cat, goldfish or a Llama, owners often treat their pets almost like children and, for many, they are an inseparable part of the family. Since we care so strongly for our pets, they can be just as much a point of contention as child custody – however, your pet doesn’t enjoy the same legal status as a child would. Many of our clients often ask us, “Who gets to keep the pet?”.

While many of us view our animals as children, unfortunately, the California courts do not share that view. When parties decide to dissolve their marriage, your pets, despite being living things, are viewed by the California Courts as property.

As the law sees it, your beloved pet is an asset with an assigned value, just as the court views your vehicle, home, and bank accounts. Therefore, in order to determine who will be awarded the property, the court must first determine the character of that property.

How Are Pets Characterized When Determining Property Division

Characterization is a bit of a misnomer to those who aren’t fluent in legalese. Characterization isn’t a description of whether Fido is a “good boy” or a “bad dog”, but rather a classification. Property in the dissolution of a marriage is characterized as either separate property, community property, or sometimes may have a mix of separate and community property. Your pet will be ‘characterized’ as either “separate property” or “community property”, like every other asset involved in your case.

What do those terms mean in plain English? Simply put, Community Property is any property acquired during the marriage, whereasSeparate Property is any property acquired before the marriage, after the date of separation or during the marriage by gift, devise, or descent.

If the court characterizes the pet as the separate property of a person, that person will be awarded the pet. It doesn’t matter who took care of the pet or who loved it more or who the pet is most attached to -it boils down to who acquired the pet and when. If you bought the dog before the marriage, it’s your dog – plain and simple, but if you bought the dog while you were a married couple, that’s where things get complicated.

If it is determined that the pet is community property, the pet will be treated as a marital asset and will be valued and divided along with the remainder of all other the marital assets.

Determining The “Value” Of A Pet – What’s Fido Worth?

When determining the value of a pet, more often than not, the sentimental value given to the animal is usually higher than the actual dollar value of a pet. The problem with sentimental value is that it is not a measurable, tangible thing. What that means is that the court will not consider the sentimental value of the animal, but only the actual monetary value of the pet.

For example, let’s imagine you’re married, and you bought an AKC Certified Australian Shepherd Dog for $900. You have the dog a few years, you and your spouse love the dog, but grow apart and decide to end your marriage. Your dog happens to be the world’s best dog in your opinion, so to you, his sentimental value is $100,000 – but that’s not what he’s worth. For the sake of discussion, let’s say that someone could buy a similar AKC rated dog of the same age for $1200 right now online. – That value of what someone else would pay today on the open market is what the dog is worth in the eyes of the law. This is a simplified example, but conveys the point well enough.

The value of the pet will usually be determined by the amount the animal could be sold for on the open market, thus placing a nominal value to an animal (unless a particular factor gives the animal more value). For example, an animal may have more value if it is a purebred, a stud animal, service animal, a specialty trained animal, or an animal bred for racing.

How The Court Determines Who Gets To Keep Fido

Finally, the court will need to determine who will be awarded the pet – the all important question of who keeps Fido the dog or Fluffy the cat. As a result of the law viewing your pet as property, in our experience over thousands of cases,

The best way to ensure that you are awarded your beloved pet is to compromise with the other party.

Since in most cases, both parties still care deeply for their pets, you may need to give up other items you want in order to have other party agree to have the pet awarded to you. If neither party can bear to part with the pet, another option is for the parties to work out a “visitation” agreement that will ensure both parties are able to see the pet.

However, if the parties cannot come to an agreement then the court will make an order awarding the asset to one of the parties. The current laws surrounding dissolution of marriage and family pets may eventually change. Until the laws change, it’s best to try and work with the other party and compromise in order to arrive at an amicable arrangement ensuring you retain custody of your pet.

Fame Is A Harsh Mistress

Written By: Ron Funk

It has recently been reported that UCLA head football coach Jim Mora Jr. missed a UCLA football camp due to his separation from his wife of 35 years. You see this quite often, where people in high visibility, high commitment, or high-pressure careers just can’t seem to make their marriages work. It’s a testament to how difficult marriage is, and how people so often have to choose what they are going to give their attention.

I recall an article about the former Miami Hurricane, Dallas Cowboy and Miami Dolphin head coach Jimmie Johnson, who apparently made the decision to divorce his wife in order to focus on football. I suppose that’s one way to ensure you don’t spread your attention too thin.

This is going to be an extremely expensive decision for Coach Mora. His current contract pays him about $3.5 million per year through 2019. You can bet his wife is going to get a big chunk of that (as well as any assets they’ve accumulated throughout their 35 years as a married couple).

What about the property they may have acquired in other states where he’s coached, which may not be community property states? They’ll be divorcing in California, a community property state, and California law provides that even real property located in other, non-community property states, will be treated as community property – “quasi-community property.”

Coach Mora is certainly not going to be destitute after his divorce is over, but his estate is going to be substantially lighter. Not only giving up half of all of his real and personal property to his wife, but a thirty-five-year marriage is a long-term marriage in California, which means he is going to be paying his wife a huge chunk of spousal support for a very long time.

3 Tips to Help Reduce Your Lawyer Bills in a Divorce

If you are about to retain an attorney to help you go through the emotional roller coaster ride known as "dissolution of marriage", one of the most anxiety-producing issues in the family law matter is the cost of attorney's fees.

The assistance of a divorce attorney is usually required even for what some would call a "simple" divorce. The immense quantity of paperwork which is now required to complete a divorce is anything but simple. Further, this paperwork is burdensome, confusing, and time-consuming, and it is important to get right the first time around.

As a result, many choose to retain an attorney to lead them "through the wilderness" and to prepare all of the necessary paperwork.

If you choose to retain an attorney, you should know, understand, and put into practice certain tips which can help to save you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in fees. An attorney is paid for his time so, in order to keep your fees as low as possible, you need to do the following:

Gather, Organize, And Deliver Documents & Information

The largest part of a "divorce budget" is what is called discovery. You can help keep your costs and fees down by gathering, organizing, and delivering all of the documents and information requested by your attorney as early as possible. This means that you will have to sacrifice some of your downtime in order to do so, but it definitely beats the "down" you will experience if you do not, as the increased attorney fees will not make you happy. A small hint: the longer the case goes on, the more fees you will pay.

Don’t Use Your Attorney As An Emotional Counselor

With relatively few exceptions, the attorney is a legal expert, not a mental health professional. Many clients seem to think the attorney is a "jack-of-all-trades" and can double as a counselor as well as a legal expert. Do yourself a favor - do not call or communicate with your attorney to "dump" all of your emotional problems. Save that process for your best friends, a rabbi/priest/pastor, or an actual mental health professional. If you do not, you will have nobody but yourself to blame for those extra hours in fees.

Limit Your Communications With The Attorney

Because an attorney's "stock-in-trade" is time, the less attorney time you use, the lower your bill will be. Most attorneys bill in six-minute increments or any portion of a six-minute period. Here's a tip: instead of sending several emails or making several telephone calls over the course of a day or a week, write your "points" down and then communicate those "points" in one email or in one telephone conversation. For example, if you send six (6) emails in one day or you make six (6) different telephone calls to your attorney in one day, that will generally cost you .6 of an hour in billing. If you follow the tip above, you can reduce that .6 charge to a .1 or .2 hour billing. Over the course of a case, that can result in significant savings to you.

A divorce hurts so much on an emotional level, and most times, there is nothing you can really do for that hurt except give it time. However, if you follow these tips, you can significantly control the "sting" that a divorce can have on your finances.

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The information on this website is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.