How to be Approved for an Adoption in Ohio

July 28, 2016

Working with an experienced, knowledgeable, and caring Ohio family attorney while going through a legal adoption process always makes sense. Procedures, paperwork, and qualifications vary depending on which person wants to adopt and whether the potential adoptee is a grandchild, stepchild, foster child, orphan, foreign child, or person over the age of 18 who could benefit from the establishment of a legally recognized parent-child relationship. The overarching considerations will always be the benefit of the individual getting adopted and the ability of the person or people making the adoption to care for the adoptee. 

Alternatives to Taking Family to Court

July 26, 2016

Few people relish the idea of taking a spouse, brother, sister, child, or parent to court to resolve a legal dispute. The time, cost, and contention can seem too much to bear. But what else can one do when a disagreement over property, financial assets, child custody, or some other essential matter cannot be settled through discussion and compromise? 

The family law attorneys with Edward F. Whipps & Associates offer help with three major alternative dispute resolution approaches. We briefly describe these below. Other options also exist, but all proceed from a basic agreement among the parties to the dispute that staying out of court and reaching a conclusion everyone can live with represent primary goals. 

How Personality Disorders Can Influence Child Custody

July 20, 2016

A personality disorder lies at the heart of the difficulties that lead many married couples to separate. Self-serving, odd, and sometimes harmful behaviors arise from the ways personality disorders cause a wife or husband to view and interact with the world, themselves, and others. Each situation is different, but the result of spending years living with and trying to accommodate an individual who can be capricious, mean-spirited, uncaring, paranoid, accusatory, duplicitous, or quick to anger can, understandably, become too much to bear. 

Children of parents with personality disorders suffer alongside spouses, often without any understanding of why their mother or father treats them coldly or cruelly. Divorce courts and judges recognize this, so they prefer to grant custody to a parent who does not show signs of a personality disorder. Accordingly, a man or woman who cites mental and emotional problems in a divorce petition should work closely with a child custody attorney who knows how family law treats personality disorders. 

The Top 3 Reasons to Choose Dissolution Over Divorce

July 1, 2016

Ending a marriage in Ohio by going through the dissolution process can limit tensions and reduce expenses. To deliver those benefits, however, both partners must commit from the beginning to act respectfully, communicate honestly, and strive to build on points of agreement rather than exploit differences. When spouses observe those principles, dissolution has three distinct advantages. 

Your Rights as a Never Married Parent

June 26, 2016

Fathering or giving birth to a child creates legal rights and obligations related to providing for the child’s housing, health, education, and general well-being. Asking a family law court to clearly define and enforce those rights and obligations often makes sense when a child’s birth parents do not marry. Seeking advice from an attorney who specializes in child custody, parental visitation, and child support issues when going to court also makes sense. 

What is Uncontested Divorce?

June 10, 2016

Completing an uncontested divorce requires having the spouse named as the defendant affirm that he or she will not deny of the claims made by the plaintiff. Reaching that point usually takes a fair amount of negotiation and/or mediation, which is also true for other kinds of divorce and marriage dissolution proceedings. To understand why pursuing an uncontested divorce can make sense even if doing so is not necessarily “easier,” consider how other ways to end a marriage work: 

How to Enforce Child Support Orders

May 28, 2016

A custodial parent who can prove that an ex-partner has repeatedly failed to meet his or her obligation to make contributions toward the housing, educational, well-being and health care of his or her child can seek many legal remedies. 

Understanding Annulments

May 26, 2016

An annulment does more than end a marriage contract. The annulment decree states that a marriage never existed in the eyes of the state. Personal, legal, and religious reasons can make seeking an annulment preferable, but anyone who requests an annulment must understand that getting a court to declare that no binding contract existed limits options for claiming shared property and blocks any request for spousal support. 

Why You Should Hire a Family Law Attorney for Your High-Asset Divorce

May 21, 2016

Each divorce raises questions over the division property, the assignment of debts, the award of spousal support, and sharing retirement benefits. Reaching fair and mutually acceptable decisions regarding each of these matters becomes increasingly difficult as the shared assets and total financial worth of the divorcing couple rises. Rather than simply being an issue of more money, more problems, having significant assets complicates divorce because the marriage gives both spouses legitimate and disputable claims to ownership over the money, real estate, investments, and salable items like jewelry, cars, and houses. 

Can Anyone Adopt?

May 10, 2016

Oho law gives pretty much every adult living in the state the right to apply for adopting a child. The right to request a legal adoption also extends to many adults who perceive advantages in creating a parental relationship with another adult. Exercising one’s right to seek an adoption, however, does not guarantee that a court will agree to declare a girl, boy, man, or woman the legally recognized dependent of the person who files for adoption.