Fulton County Divorce Lawyer Blog

During the 2008 presidential campaign, people throughout the country heard about Bristol Palin's son, Tripp. Since then, Palin's relationship with Tripp's father, Levi Johnston, has been the subject of gossip and news stories from Alaska to Florida. The couple is not married and recently fought a child custody battle in the courts.

The custody arrangement reached this month creates a strict framework for Johnston's involvement with his son. Palin received primary custody of Tripp, and Johnston can see him only during specified times.

An extremely unusual child support lawsuit is coming up for trial in California. Two grown children of billionaire land developer Donald Bren are suing him for $400,000 per month in back child support. Each. For fourteen years.

The total amount sought by the two children is said to be over $134 million, or more than $67 million for each child. This despite the fact that he has already paid $9 million in child support over the years for the two children.

The case has major implications both for child support policy and for fathers' rights. The 78-year-old billionaire has been extremely private about his personal fortune and spending habits, but Forbes has estimated is fortune at around $12 billion. He is known as a generous philanthropist and has a reputation as a major political donor.

More important, his situation sheds a spotlight on questions about how much child support is fair and reasonable.

How Much Child Support Is Enough?

With the Bristol Palin/Levi Johnston child custody agreement freshly in the news, child advocates and fathers' rights groups have taken the opportunity to discuss the impact of shared parenting arrangements on children. A recent article from eMaxHealth, an independent health news organization, discussed some of the science about the topic.

Palin and Johnston's child custody agreement specifies that Bristol Palin will have primary physical custody, while Johnston will have twice-weekly visitation with their son Tripp. The pair will share joint legal custody. Fathers' rights groups have praised Palin for proactively seeking an arrangement that will keep her former fiancée deeply involved in their son's life despite the end of the couple's relationship.

According to several psychological and sociological studies, that decision will likely have a long-term positive impact on Tripp. Citing these and similar studies, fathers' rights groups have recently initiated a nationwide effort to require courts to start divorce and paternity cases with the assumption that joint custody will be awarded unless there is a specific reason not to award it.

Consistent, Long-Term Contact With Both Parents Is Generally Positive

Here is another example of the sort of drama we all hope to avoid in our personal lives and in the practice of family law. According to news reports, a man from Chicago recently jumped from a third-storey window to avoid paying $5,979.66 in child support.

35-year-old Ronald "Boobie" McIntyre was being pursued by police on a Cook County warrant for unpaid child support. McIntyre, a career criminal with 80 criminal convictions unrelated to the child support issue, was apparently keen to avoid another arrest.

When Cook County Sheriff's officers attempted to take him into custody at his apartment, a woman let them in but said disappeared and she had no idea where he was.

A child then pointed to a back window. The officers looked out and saw McIntyre splayed on the ground.

"Though it appeared he landed on grass, it was actually artificial turf covering concrete," a sheriff's office representative told the Chicago Tribune. Both of McIntyre's legs were broken in the fall.

After harsh criticism regarding a growing number of unresolved parental abduction cases in Japan, the Japanese government has announced that it will sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction as early as next year. Child advocates, parent and fathers' rights groups and the U.S. State Department are among those hailing the decision.

Over the past five years or so, conflict over international child custody issues with Japan and other nations has come to a head. In these cases, a Japanese parent, most often the mother, takes the children to Japan without the non-Japanese parent's consent -- often in violation of a U.S. child custody order.

Once there, Japanese law becomes a virtually impenetrable wall against the children's return. Child custody is virtually always granted there to the parent who is a citizen of Japan, regardless of what was ordered by the children's home country. Japanese law also does not give non-custodial parents any visitation rights.

The Hague Convention, which has been signed by the U.S. and 68 other countries, provides a mechanism for protecting children from parental abduction by requiring the courts of signatory countries to return children to their countries of origin.

If you're considering divorce, you probably already know there are a lot of financial decisions to be made. You may need to decide whether one spouse will continue to live in the family home, or whether you should try to sell it. Especially in a high-asset divorce, you probably have a web of personal and marital assets such as retirement plans, insurance, separate and/or joint checking and savings accounts, vacation properties, and other property. You may have shared debts to figure out.

While the divorce process itself includes procedures for marital property division, it won't take care of all the financial and property decisions you need to make after a break-up. You should review your overall financial plan to make sure you have enough and the right types of insurance, investments and savings.

A financial planner can help you plan to live within your new budget, help with tax issues and make sure you have the right insurance and retirement plans in place.

You will also need to change your will and estate plan, along with the beneficiaries to your retirement plan, life insurance policy, annuities and the like.

"I advise people with any type of life change -- a wedding, death or divorce -- to pull your will out and look at it," said West Virginia estate planning lawyer Michelle Bechtel in a recent interview with The State Journal.

Georgia Law Does Not Automatically Revoke Your Ex-Spouse as a Beneficiary

Facing unprecedented levels of unpaid child support, many states are seeking new methods for improving child support collection. Several states, for example, are going after casino winnings as a source of income from which to collect.

Indiana recently passed a law to hold back casino winnings from deadbeat parents. The Indiana Department of Child Services estimates more than 165,000 parents of Indiana children are at least $2,000 behind on their child support. Overall, children in that state are owed more than $2 billion in unpaid child support.

The State of Colorado passed a similar law in 2008. The Colorado Department of Human Services' Division of Child Support Enforcement estimates that withholding gambling winnings from people with unpaid child support obligations resulted in the collection of more than $320 million in delinquent payments. Other states are considering similar measures.

The truth is, every state's child support policy is intended to uphold the principle that every child has the right to expect financial support from both parents. When parents don't meet their obligations for whatever reason, the children are the losers.

Child Support Enforcement Mechanisms in Georgia

Luckily, most divorcing couples don't face a fraction of the mayhem involved in a recent case reported by the Associated Press. While the dispute between John and Lynn France -- involving allegations of adultery, bigamy and parental kidnapping -- is in no way common, it does serve to illustrate some growing issues in divorce.

John and Lynn France of Ohio were married in Italy in July 2005. They have two boys and are currently involved in a child custody dispute. Depending on whom you ask, are either divorcing or were never married in the first place.

After a serious of suspicious business trips John took, Lynn began to suspect that he was cheating on her in the fall of 2008. After discovering his plans at a romantic hotel, Lynn tracked him down -- finding him with a woman claiming to be fiancée. In disbelief, Lynn confronted John, who told her he wouldn't actually go through with the wedding.

He did, though. Lynn later found wedding pictures on the other woman's Facebook page -- featuring John literally dressed as Prince Charming and his new wife as Sleeping Beauty in a Disney World ceremony.