Arizona Family Law Attorney

3 Typical Family Law Cases

A recent case handled by the firm involved a husband and wife with over $10 million in community property, a long term marriage that involved a retirement plan, deferred compensation, stocks, stock portfolio, stock options. There were valuations of real property that needed to be done, valuations of jewelry and personal property and art collections. Because of the long term nature of the marriage and the fact that one party's income exceeded greatly the other party's income, the issue of spousal maintenance was also dealt with at that time.

Another case handled by the firm was the division of an accounting practice in a divorce situation. It was necessary to value the business, see earlier article on valuing business in a divorce case. Child support is also an issue in this case and the court had to look at the definition of gross income for people that are self-employed or run their own business. One must look at not the bottom line or the profit that the business reports or passes through to the shareholder, but rather, take a look at the ordinary necessary business expenses and subtract that from the revenue. Many business owners run personal expenses through the business, such as their vehicle, fuel, cell phone, entertainment, recreation, housing, utilities, etc. In many cases, the attorney must dissect the financial statement and the balance sheet of the spouse who owns the business to determine what is gross income.

Another case the firm handled in family law had to do with parental alienation syndrome. Sometimes going through a divorce, parents, grandparents, or extended family polarize and attempt to alienate or denigrate the opposing parent. In other words, when the children would visit the mother or father's home, the mother and her parents (that is, the children's grandparents) would denigrate and badmouth the other parent. If the denigration is serious, then it falls into a category which professionals call parental alienation syndrome. This can be mild, moderate, and severe. In severe cases, it almost always necessitates the removal of the children from the offending parent to the parent who does not commit acts of parental alienation. Most often, parental alienation syndrome is devastating to the children, and results in children with more emotional problems, acting out problems, and social irregularity.