Illinois readers may be interested in the story of woman from a nearby state. The woman fled her home state with her child in tow, which violated her child custody agreement.
The child's father dropped the child off with the mother per the child custody arrangement. When he came to pick the child up several days later, he found the mother's apartment empty and an eviction notice posted on the door.
The decision to divorce can be difficult for any couple in Illinois, but depending on a number of factors such as the length of marriage, amount of assets and age of any children, the divorce process itself can be a challenge - even if those divorcing are willing to work with each other. Property division in particular can be a challenge with consequences that go beyond just the ex-spouses.
For example, many parents begin saving for college when children are born or early in their development. For some, this means opening a 529 plan - an investment account for college or other higher level education - and reaping its tax advantages while setting aside money for later use. However, when parents decide to divorce, one of the hidden issues that will have to be addressed is how to deal with such accounts.
The Illinois General Assembly legalized civil unions in 2011. While this was an important step forward in family law for gay and lesbian couples, the law created, in effect, two tiers of marriage. The traditional kind and a "sort of skim-milk marriage," as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader put it during a recent oral argument.
Regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court decides to do in the civil union cases currently before it, Illinois is poised to do away with the distinction. To do that, the legislature will need to pass the marriage equality bill.
When lawmakers in Illinois lawmakers propose a bill that would have a big effect on certain married couples, it is important that those couples not only understand how they could be affected but also how they can voice their opinions about those changes. Changes to Illinois divorce law will not only affect those seeking to dissolve their marriage but could also impact the steps couples take before they get married.
A proposed Illinois bill is a product of four years of hearings by the bipartisan Family Law Study Committee and would result in numerous changes to the current laws. For example, it would abolish the need to establish grounds for a divorce and require divorce judgments to typically be issued within 60 days. It would prevent "home-wrecking" lawsuits, which historically went after the ex-spouse's lover or new fiancé for causing the marriage to collapse.
Birth should be a time of joy, but for some women it is not so simple. For these women, childbirth also can mean a child custody battle with the person who allegedly raped them. Some Illinois lawmakers recently proposed a measure that would help these women.
Currently under Illinois law, a woman who is raped and ultimately gets pregnant can attempt to have the alleged rapist's visitation and custody rights limited, so long as that rapist is criminally convicted of the rape.
Most Illinoisans likely have dreamed of winning the lottery. Cash may have been tight with the bills piling up. Or they may have wanted the freedom to find a different job, but could not risk leaving their current one. For one lucky man, that dream came true and with it came the end of a major family law issue: back child support.
The man, who ran a struggling bodega, fathered five children and owed roughly $30,000 in unpaid child support. After winning, the man put the bodega up for sale and went to court to resolve that debt.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard not one, but two cases that may have important implications for same-sex partners in Illinois. One case involves the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which blocks legally married same-sex couples from many federal benefits that straight couples enjoy. The other case concerns California's Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage.
While the importance of these issues is clear, how the Court will handle them is anything but. That, however, has not stopped pundits from guessing. These experts generally expect the Court to shy away from imposing a nationwide rule. Instead, the Court may prefer to simply strike down DOMA and affirm a lower court decision to invalidate Prop 8. Both would be victories, but not the home run some might have hoped for.
The issue of child support can be emotionally charged, even in the best of circumstances. This is true whether the child's parents are undergoing a divorce, or whether the parents were never married. Oftentimes, the first step a court takes in making a child support determination is establishing paternity. However, a bill recently passed by an Illinois Senate committee may change the way child support is handled for a father who is not the biological parent.
The bill came into being after a father, who had been paying child support for 13 years, learned after taking a DNA test that he was not the child's biological father. The father initially declined to take a DNA test back in 2001. However, he did take a DNA test after meeting the child for the first time in 2011. His attempts to petition the courts to release him from his child support obligations failed, in part due to a two year statute of limitations. The bill, which the committee passed unanimously, would allow the man to stop paying child support so long as he agrees to take another court-ordered DNA test. The bill now awaits further action on the Senate floor.
Same sex marriage has been a polarizing issue in American politics for a number of years. With divergent attitudes among the states, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, understanding how federal courts will decide complex legal issues involving same-sex couples and adoption remains unclear. In fact, Illinois same sex couples may be interested to learn about a recent decision made by a Michigan federal judge.
Last Thursday a federal judge in Michigan put off a decision on the constitutionality of Michigan's same-sex marriage ban until two same-sex marriage cases currently before the United States Supreme Court are decided. The decision effectively put a hold on a very serious family law case currently before the court. The case involves same sex partners that want joint custody of three children that the women adopted separately. Michigan instituted a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2004.
Divorce usually has financial implications for both parties, not the least of which is the impact on a party's personal tax situation. If someone has recently undergone a divorce in Illinois, there are a few things he or she should keep in mind in order to avoid paying more taxes than absolutely necessary.
First, anyone who divorced prior to January 1 should remember to file as a single person. This may be easy to forget for a person who is used to filing jointly, but it is a simple thing that can save money. But on the other hand, a newly single custodial parent should file as head of household, as this status provides even more advantages for a single person than does filing as single.
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