Jacksonville Divorce Lawyer Blog

It may seem strange for a Florida divorce lawyer to say, but a big part of our job is to keep you out of court. Because once you go to court for your divorce, your post-divorce life is in the hands of a stranger. Of course, this stranger – a judge – is supposed to rule fairly. But judges are human. They can have a bad day just like the rest of us. The best-case scenario is not to have a divorce case in court at all.

However, if your Florida divorce case does end up in court, here is how you should prepare yourself:

Confer with your attorney and take his or her advice on how you should dress and act in the courtroom. They know this judge a lot better than you do.

In a Florida divorce proceeding, the family courts set aside all non-marital assets and liabilities and equitably distribute all marital assets and liabilities between the parities. Therefore, it is helpful to know what constitutes a martial asset in order to determine what property you are entitled.

Martial property includes any property acquired during the marriage by the efforts of either spouse. Also, a spouses retirement account, IRAs and 401k plans may be subject to equitable distribution if that plan or account was acquired by one spouse during the marriage. Marriage is defined as the date of marriage to the date of filing the divorce.

Some concrete examples of “marital property” include but are not limited to:
1. A home, if the home was purchased during the marriage with the earnings of one or both parties.
2. A pension plan, to the extent the plan accrued during the marriage.
3. The value of bank accounts, mutual funds, etc., to the extent the funds deposited were earned by either party during the marriage.
4. Gifts between spouses during the marriage.

See Florida Statute sec. 61.075: Equitable Distribution of Marital Assets and Liabilities for the exact language of the Florida Statute.

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One of the areas of confusion for clients who are getting a divorce in Florida is what constitutes marital and non-marital assets and liabilities for purposes of equitable distribution. The following is a list delineating each:

Marital Assets and Liabilities:

Assets (and liabilities) that have been obtained/incurred during the marriage, by one or both spouses;

A new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Waisman Center has found that parents of grown children with autism have a higher rate of divorce.

Published in the August issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, the study is the first of its kind to track the marital history of parents who have adult children with autism. Its findings contradict earlier assumptions that parents of autistic children face a bigger risk of divorce during the child’s younger years.

Researchers studied 391 couples that are parents of adolescent and adult children with autism, comparing their rate of divorce with a sample drawn from another large study, the National Survey of Midlife in the United States. They found that the divorce rate for both sets of parents were relatively the same until the child reaches the age of eight; at that time, the incidence of divorce for couples with autistic children remains high while it goes down for parents of children without disabilities.

In a first for the state of Maryland – but what may be an indication of things to come in family court – a judge has awarded joint custody of a dog to its owners in a divorce case.

Craig and Gayle Myers will now spend six months each with Lucky, a Shih Tzu mix they adopted during their eight-year marriage. The couple has no children, but considers Lucky to be the closest thing to it; apparently they found a judge — retired Maryland Circuit Judge Graydon S. McKee II — who agrees.

In a CNN story about the case, Judge McKee said that even though dogs are considered property in Maryland, like every other state in the U.S., “I really don’t think a dog is like a couch.”

Journalist and author Anneli Rufus recently blogged about 15 Ways to Predict Divorce at thedailybeast.com after crunching numbers from a variety of studies on divorce. Here are some of her findings:

Just by being an American, you have a 40-50 percent chance of divorcing.

If you live in a “red state”, you are 27 percent more likely to divorce. This is because red-staters get married at a younger age.

If you and your spouse are contemplating a Florida divorce, there are some basic rules you need to know before you proceed:

Residency requirement. At least one of you must be a Florida resident for at least six months prior to filing for divorce.

Grounds. Florida is a “no fault” divorce state where most divorces are based on the grounds of “irreconcilable differences”. However, “fault” may be considered when it comes to awarding alimony or property division.