New York Family Law Blog

It was once a statistical fact that living together before marriage was more likely to result in divorce. Still, it is more common than ever for couples to live together without being married. Have matters changed?
The times have certainly changed. In the late 70s, about one-third of people lived together before getting married. Most of these were people who lived less traditional lives, which made them more prone to divorce, a sociologist said to a New York Family Lawyer. The stigma against what was once called “living in sin” has faded, though some socially religious groups still frown upon it. Now, two-thirds of American marriages start as cohabitation.
Motivations may have also changed. Free love was a motivation in the 70s. Today, it may be financial reasons that prompt a couple to live together. “What really stood out was the change in unemployment characteristics,” a family demographer for the U.S. Census told a New York Family Lawyer. In 2008, 59 percent of cohabitating couples said both partners were employed. It was only 49 percent just two years later.
Many of the currently cohabitating couples may not even get married, especially if they moved in together for economic reasons. New York Family Lawyers have noted lower income couples are less likely to get married to each other in the end. Even when they do get married, they are more likely to get divorced. Financial reasons can be even more important than romantic reasons. In the Great Depression, when very few people would even consider cohabitation, marriage and divorce rates dropped.
Families change over time and so does family law, which is why someone knowledgeable, like a New York Family Lawyer, is so important. You need someone with skill in the law to represent your family, and there is no one better for that than a New York Family Lawyer.

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Census data has revealed some interesting facts, according to New York Family Lawyers. Couples with sons are less likely to split up, unmarried pregnant couples are more likely to quickly get married if the child is going to be a boy and divorced mothers of boys are more likely marry again and stay remarried.
This does not mean, of course, that daughters wreck marriage, New York Family Lawyers are quick to say. Research from 2003 shows that couples with a first-born girl were about 5 percent more likely to divorce than when the parents had a son born first. Three daughters can double that to 10 percent.
The research comes from more than 3 million adults in U.S. Census data, which means the data is probably not just some statistical anomaly. That leaves the question of why this trend is so. Some believe it may be that many don’t want to raise boys in a fatherless home. Or it may be that mothers are far more willing to leave a bad marriage because the presence of a daughter empowers the mother.
“One dynamic I’ve seen is that women don’t want to put up with a controlling or abusive husband because they’re afraid to model this as an acceptable form of marriage to their daughters,” a clinical psychologist said to a New York Family Lawyer. “There is a lot of individual variation, though; it could go both ways.”
It is impossible for census data to provide a definitive answer, which means researchers will explore the phenomenon further.
Families are a very complicated matter, especially when it intersects with the law. A New York Family Attorney can help when those times arise. No matter how complicated the problem, a New York Family Attorney can make it so much easier to deal with, so you can get on with your life.

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It’s true that there’s no estate tax in 2010, so anyone who stands to inherit in that year will not lose any money to that, no matter how much the sum might be. Unfortunately, it might be offset by a change in capital gains tax when it comes to selling those inherited things, says a New York Family Lawyer.
Before 2010, an heir could sell inherited property what is known as a stepped-up basis, according to New York Family Lawyers. This means that capital gains would be assessed based upon the value of the asset when the owner died, not what the original owner bought it for. So, if someone bought a classic car when it was new for $5,000, but that car is now worth $75,000, the value of the car would be stepped up to $75,000. So, if the heirs sold the car for $75,000, in 2009, there would be no capital gains tax.
Lawmakers decided that would be too much money lost, so in place of the repealed estate tax, heirs had to pay capital gains on a carry-over basis. This means that same car would have $70,000 dollars eligible to capital gains tax, says a New York Family Lawyer. This could be a problem for people who inherit small businesses, who may have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to sell that business, even when it falls below the 2009 threshold where estate taxes normally would have been paid.
Matters of inheritance can be particularly tricky. Fortunately, a New York Family Attorney can make things a lot easier. Knowledge of the law is a useful asset to have and a New York Family Attorney can supply you with that knowledge.

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A one year old child was left trapped inside a car while his mother went inside to smoke marijuana, reports a New York Family Law Lawyer. The mother was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, and endangering the welfare of a child. The child's father was contacted and since the incident the boy has been released to his father's custody and care.

It was a Good Samaritan passing by that first noticed the child alone and unattended in the car. The child had been left there for at least 40 minutes, notes a New York Family Law Lawyer. The police rushed to the scene, saw the child, and immediately proceeded to the home. There, they confronted the mother and asked her what happened. Her reply was that she had only left the boy in the car for five minutes. From there, the police noticed the strong, specific smell of marijuana. They then found a small pipe as they searched the premise, said a New York Family Law Lawyer. The woman's defense was that she was using the pipe because he was not feeling well. She did not offer an excuse nor explanation for why she had to leave her son in the car while she smoked marijuana.

From there, the police did what they had to do and placed the woman under arrest. She became violent and lashed out at the well meaning police officers. She attempted to forcefully kick, forcefully punch, and forcefully strike at anyone within distance, reports a New York Family Law Lawyer. Thankfully, no one injured. There were no reports of the child being harmed.

The woman was held over night in jail.

If you or someone you know has been the victim of domestic or child abuse contact a New York Family Law Attorney. Abuse in the home is dangerous and illegal and your rights should be protected. A New York Family Law Attorney can protect you and your loved ones.

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Sometimes, it’s just not meant to be. But sometimes, maybe it is meant to be. Consider the high-profile couple that had a highly publicized divorce, had a year-long battle in court – then reconciled before the divorce was finalized!
A former supermodel and her billionaire husband spent 18 months in a bitter separation struggle, New York Family Lawyers have learned. Newspapers printed stories about adultery, drug use, even theft. More than 100,000 court documents were filed and millions were spent in legal fees. After all that, the couple decided they wanted to try and hold their marriage together.
Unfortunately, happy endings like that are rare, when it comes to divorce. “Sometimes people aren’t meant to be together and there is no alternative,” a relationship expert told a New York Family Lawyer. Naturally, one doesn’t have to be rich and/or famous to have problems in a marriage.
Almost half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. New York Family Lawyers report that the divorce rate is down by 16 percent over the last decade, however. “Marriage is hard work, it’s togetherness and it’s tough, but you are there for each other, you’re a team,” the relationship expert said to a New York Family Lawyer.
Not every instance that requires family law has to be a sad one. New York Family Lawyers can deal with any kind of matter where legal questions intersect with family life. Everyone wants only the best of their family and the best when it comes to family law is a New York Family Attorney.

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It was perhaps inevitable. The mayor of White Plains, New York, was already in the middle of dealing with his two arrests for domestic violence when he and his wife both filed for divorce, a New York Family Lawyer has learned.
“All we can say is there are two filings,” one of the mayor’s attorney’s told a New York Family Lawyer, “which means there was a case brought by him against her and her against him.”
The filings were submitted at the same time, about six months after the mayor’s first arrest for allegedly slamming his wife’s fingers in a door.
The same judge presiding over the criminal case will also handle the divorce proceedings, since the county has an integrated domestic violence court. Attorneys for both sides told New York Family Lawyers they were not certain if the criminal case would be affected by the divorce.
There is a protective order against the mayor regarding his wife, according to a New York Family Lawyer. His charges include assault, witness tampering and harassment and add up to nine misdemeanor and violation charges in all. The case should go to trial in late October.
The mayor and his current wife have two young daughters.
A New York Family Lawyer is your best resource when family matters and legal matters intersect, as they so often seem to do. Bringing such personal things into court is always an uncomfortable thing to say the least, but the entire process can be made much easier when the expertise of a New York Family Attorney is at your disposal.

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The ex-wife of Dick Wolf, creator of “Law and Order”, claims she was swindled out of tens of millions of dollars, according to a New York Family Lawyer. An attorney for the business management company contends that the case not only “lacks merit”, but that it “intends to contest [the ex-wife’s] latest filing in Los Angeles Superior Court.”
Wolf’s ex-wife filed a suit of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, according to a New York Family Lawyer. It is her claim that the company sided with her ex-husband in their heated divorce proceedings of 2002. She claims her advisers did not tell her that the company she shared with her husband would continue to earn money for “Law and Order” and its spinoffs. If a decision is made for Wolf’s ex-wife, they could owe her millions.
In addition, she claims the company’s worth was not correctly stated to her and it is worth a lot more than she was told. She informed a New York Family Lawyer that she was told she’d only make about $8 million more from the show. This is not even “remotely close” to what the franchise has generated, she says.
Dick Wolf himself is not a defendant in this case. They were divorced in 2005, after 22 years of marriage.
Even after the bonds of family are dissolved, there may still be legal battles to fight. You have a good chance of winning that battle if you have a New York Family Attorney on your side. These matters are difficult enough to deal with, which is why a New York Family Attorney is so important, for those times when family and law collide.

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She was there, of course, to see the marriage between Victoria’s Secret supermodel Stephanie Seymour and her billionaire husband break up. After all, she was the other woman.
The platinum-haired ex-lover of the billionaire had a year-and-a-half long affair with him and when it comes to the inevitable child custody battle, she has already thrown her lot in with Stephanie Seymour, rather than the man she had the affair with. “I don’t know how Stephanie lived with this man for so many years,” she told a New York Family Lawyer. “He was so controlling, I would have emotional breakdowns.”
According to her, the billionaire would go on and on about his wife’s problems, from alleged infidelities to drug abuse. “Every time I saw him, he would say something about her,” said the 24-year-old pinup girl. “He didn’t feel like she was fit to be a mother and said he would keep fighting so she wouldn’t look after the kids.” The billionaire and his wife have three children: two boys aged 16 and 14 and a little 5-year-old girl.
The couple and their lawyers issued a joint statement to New York Family Lawyers: “It is truly sad that this woman is seeking to promote herself in such a shameless manner … Her account is full of untruths, and she is exaggerating any role she had in our lives. She is totally irrelevant to us and our family.”
The end of a marriage is never a pleasant experience. A steady presence is required to help navigate the legal problems. A New York Family Attorney provides that presence. No one can make the process less painful, but a New York Family Attorney can, at least, bring about a swift resolution that keeps your interests in mind at all times.

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An 11-year-old boy was removed from a school bus in San Antonio in October of 2009, according to a New York Family Lawyer, by Bexar County constables acting on a court order. The boy’s father was scheduled to be in court the following Monday, but neither the boy or his father were seen again until June of 2010.
A French court subsequently granted custody of the boy to his mother. The father will face charges of kidnapping, aggravated perjury and interfering with child custody, sources told a New York Family Laywer.
A district attorney is attempting to extradite the father, but the district attorney’s office expects some resistance from the French government. The First Assistant District Attorney says the French do not generally extradite their own citizens. New York Family Lawyers have explained that unless the father should return to the United States or Mexico, there is nothing further than can do to him.
“That certainly makes Texas a safe place for the mother and child,” the First Assistant District Attorney told a New York Family Lawyer. Both mother and child are back in San Antonio as of this writing.
Disputes within families are never pleasant, especially when there are children involved. It’s difficult to take a step back and be able to properly mediate such dispute. This is why a New York Family Attorney is so important. The representation of a New York Family Attorney is the best person to turn to when a family legal manner arises that you just can’t handle on your own.

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