Absolutely.  Fathers’ rights have been gaining more and more attention in the past two decades.  And from what I’ve seen, judges are starting to come around to the idea that men and women are to be seen as equals when it comes to deciding custody.

But, this doesn’t mean its easy, nor that it happens with a lot of frequency.  Judges are human.  And I can still tell a bias in favor of the mother when it comes to extremely young children.  Also, mothers are oftentimes more nurturing than fathers – and children tend to gravitate towards the more nurturing parent when it comes to giving their preference on where they want to live.

So, if you are a father wanting custody of your children, you’ll need to have your ducks in a row before going to court.  Be sure to hire competent counsel that is skilled in the area of custody law and trying custody cases in front of the local judges.  Help your attorney by providing detailed summaries of what your witnesses will testify to.  Gather all the facts you can to help your case.  I suggest keeping a diary or calendar so that you can tell your attorney, and the judge, the exact date that an event happened.  The most persuasive witnesses are the ones that get on the stand and have their facts together.  Judges are impressed by that.

There are also great organizations that can assist fathers wanting custody.  Check out these sites.. Fathers4Kids and DadsRights.

Wow, leave it to Georgia to throw family law attorneys for a loop.

Most states have statutes that regulate visitation rights for grandparents.  And the statutes vary greatly from state to state.  Most of the time, when an adoption is granted, the rights of the biological family members are terminated.  However, Georgia’s statute has an exception – if a biological parent OR step-parent adopts the child, then grandparents may still petition the court for visitation.

The statute in Arkansas does not have this exception.  But could this Georgia case be used to argue otherwise?  Or maybe persuade the legislature to expand visitation rights for grandparents?

Stay tuned.

Here’s the Georgia case.

Calculating child support is pretty straightforward most of the time.  Other times, it can be complicated.  One of those times  usually involves the situation of the self-employed payor.  There are numerous ways to “hide” income, or more popular, use the business to pay for most of the personal expenses of the payor.  Then the payor claims a disproportionately low amount of income and wants the court to set child support based on that income.

Wrong.  It can take some convincing of the judge, and normally a lot of digging, but it is sometimes possible to prove to the judge that the child support should be higher than what the payor is claiming on his tax returns.

The following Montana case is a good illustration.  Below is just a summary but you can click on the link in the previous sentence for the full opinion.

Do you think this guy regrets having his wife handle his bookkeeping for that one tax year?

Summary:  Imputation of income to self-employed husband in amount of $90,000, rather than using husband’s tax returns showing taxable income of between $11,000 and $14,000, for purposes of establishing husband’s child support obligation, was not abuse of discretion; tax returns were not only objective evidence of husband’s income, husband’s businesses required extensive travel, for which he took deductions for lodging, meals, and vehicle payments, businesses earned gross income ranging from $197,821 to $432,199, wife, who had done husband’s bookkeeping for one tax year, offered exhibits supporting her assertion that husband netted $86,524 for that year after subtracting business expenses from sales, and parties had lifestyle that was inconsistent with husband’s claim of income between $11,000 and $14,000.

Turns out the answer may be “yes” according to the Wall Street Journal.  It may be possible to increase your social security benefits based on your ex spouse’s income.

Before you get too excited, there are some requirements you have to meet.  First, your marriage had to have been more than 10 years in length.  Second, you have to currently be single, unless you got married after you turned 60 years of age.

There are likely other requirements as well so its best to go straight to the horse’s mouth on this one.  Click here for a link to the Social Security website for more information.

Also, here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal article.

Oftentimes a parent in the military is fighting an uphill battle to gain custody of a child.  The primary reason is the possibility of deployment at virtually any time.  Judges are concerned about the stability of the child’s environment when the possibility of deployment is ever present.

In this New York case, the military-father was awarded custody AND was allowed to relocate.  And the court cites what I have always thought was a good argument (but was routinely ignored), and that is that the “father’s choice to remain in the military provided him with stability in employment during turbulent economic times, as well as benefits including health insurance for his family…”

Now, it should be noted that this father worked regular daytime hours which permitted him to be at home with the child in the evenings and on weekends.  This father was also married and the court noted that the marriage was stable and there were two other children in the home.  This stable home-life environment was obviously a factor in the court’s decision.

Still, this seems to be a solid decision by the court and is well worth considering in the realm of military custody cases.

Another aspect of this court’s decision is that the visitation was modified due to the long drive (5 hours) that the child had to endure for visitation.  Visitation was reduced to one weekend per month.  THIS MAKES TOTAL SENSE.  Many judges are reluctant to deviate from their “standard order” and it can be maddening for attorneys trying to get some relief for their clients.  Judges need to look at these cases on a case-by-case basis.  The standard order is not always the best order.

The Powell tragedy last week was a horrific example of what can go wrong when one parent becomes terribly disturbed during the course of a child custody proceeding.  Of course, there were already serious questions about Josh Powell and his involvement in his wife’s disppearance.  Combine those suspicions with his children’s recent revelations of the last time they saw their mother, and that she was apparently in the trunk of their father’s car, and a recipe for disaster was created.

Many will want to place blame on those involved, including DHS and the caseworker assigned to the case.  But the fact is, if there had been sufficient evidence that something like this was coming then it is likely that more steps would have been taken to limit or even suspend Josh’s visitation.  But like many cases, it is difficult to get accurate psychological profiles of parents given the limited time involved and the limited budgets of DHS and/or the parents themselves.  Then of course there is the problem of identifying whether there is a need for psychological testing to begin with.  Maybe the parent is presenting as completely normal in meetings and at court hearings?

This article discusses the Powell case and that maybe judges have too much discretion in determining custody and visitation issues.  Powell article

The women that were behind the lawsuit that made same-sex marriage legal in California in 2008 are now divorcing.   Robin Tyler and Diane Olson filed for divorce last month.  The couple had filed their lawsuit in 2004 to end California’s ban on same-sex marriage, and were successful after a long battle.

Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle article.

Arkansas’ Administrative Order No. 10, and the case law surrounding and defining it, uphold the proposition that a child support payor may not voluntarily reduce his/her income in order to avoid or reduce his/her child support obligation.  In other words, if you are trying to intentionally lose your job (or get a worse job) so you can lower the amount of child support you pay, you are forewarned that Arkansas courts take a very dim view of this type of behavior/plan/strategy/weasliness.

Now along comes the Bendinelli case and a very curious question.  Apparently some time after the divorce Mr. Bendinelli was convicted of a felony involving “sexual offenses.”  His new status as a sex offender, and felon, hindered his ability to find employment.  He therefore had a reduction in income and requested a reduction in child support – which the trial court granted.

Ms. Bendinelli obviously had problems with this result and appealed.  Her argument seems sound – how can my ex husband lower child support based on the fact that he intentionally engaged in criminal behavior that resulted in his reduction in income?  He sexually assaulted someone and got caught.  Why should he be allowed to reduce his child support when his reduction in income is directly related to his illegal, and intentional, conduct?

The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s decision.  Part of the decision states “There is certainly no evidence that he committed [the acts] for the purpose of reducing his child-support obligation.”  I hope the court was at least a little squeamish when they approved that sentence for the opinion.  Makes me squeamish just reading it.

One of the strangest stories of the past week is that of John Goodman, the 48 year old millionaire from Florida.  He’s the guy that adopted his 42 year old girlfriend so that she could get a third of his substantial financial holdings.

So, why be so elaborate?  Why not just give her a third of his holdings?  Well, Mr. Goodman is involved in a heated wrongful death lawsuit.  He is alleged to have been drunk on an evening in 2010 and drove his vehicle through a stop sign and hit 23 year old Scott Wilson, killing him.   Scott Wilson’s parents are suing Mr. Goodman and claiming monetary damages.

Normally, transfers of assets during a lawsuit come under scrutiny by courts.  It seems that people that are being sued, and have the possiblity of losing assets due to the lawsuit, have a tendency to want to get rid of their assets – or transfer them to somewhere or someone “safe” for the time being.  So courts try to limit this activity.

But it seems Mr. Goodman may have found a loophole.  By adopting his girlfriend, she is now his daughter (ewww!), and therefore able to partake in his estate/trust plan as one of his “children.”

Interestingly, a judge faced with an adoption decision has the final say-so on whether the adoption is granted or not.  This will be worth monitoring in the coming weeks.   Here’s an article on the case…John Goodman article.

The latest music bombshell was dropped around 7 p.m. eastern time last night as the news spread about the death of Whitney Houston.  She was known as an incredible talent, with an angelic yet powerful voice.  Her rendition of the national anthem at Super Bowl XXV is still widely considered one of the greatest renditions of the anthem in history.

If you know much about Whitney’s life, you know that it was a constant roller coaster of ups and downs.  Her relationship/marriage to Bobby Brown was incredibly turbulent, not to mention downright damaging.  There were also episodes of drug abuse over the past 20 years.  But Whitney was making a comeback in recent months and many had high hopes for her.  Which makes her death even more tragic.

Dr. Boyce Watkins, professor at Syracuse University, writes about 5 lessons that we can take from Whitney’s death.  I encourage you to read this excellent article…Five Lessons We Can Learn from Whitney’s Life and Death.