Child support is more than just an amount of money one parent pays to the other after a divorce. Learn more about how child support works and what the Texas Family Code says about it. Everyone going through a divorce with children wants to know either how much child support will I pay or how much will I receive. But there’s really more to child support than that, and it’s important to understand what child support is for before you go into a divorce. Child support is, at its core, designed … [Read more...]
Regaining Our Civility
In a world in which civility is harder to come by, collaborative divorce allows couples to attain civility in divorce, without the rancor that litigation brings. A couple of years ago, my daughter took a driver’s ed class. The instructor, commenting on a certain impolite hand gesture some frustrated drivers resort to, as being told, “You’re number one.” I laughed at that, but for the first few months my daughter was out on the roads, she was being told that she was “number one” at least once … [Read more...]
Remembering Children in Divorce
Children in divorce simply want their parents to stop fighting, and collaborative divorce is the best way to achieve that. Among the mixed pleasures of my career as a lawyer are the many court appointments I have had representing children whose parents were going through divorce. I say a mixed pleasure because, in many ways, I was very limited in my ability to achieve what my young clients almost invariably asked of me: "Please make my parents stop fighting." Unfortunately for the children … [Read more...]
Advocating for Children in the Collaborative Process
In advance of the 9th Annual Collaborative Law Course presented by the State Bar of Texas, we spoke to Carie P. Mack, an Allen-based collaboratively-trained family lawyer and co-presenter of the session titled “Advocating for Children in the Collaborative Process,” to learn more about the information she’ll be sharing with other Texas collaborative professionals. What are the different ways mental health professionals might be used in a collaborative case? There are three roles that a … [Read more...]
Low-Income Collaborative Divorce now available statewide
This blog article is from Norma Trusch, a Houston-based collaborative family lawyer and longtime proponent of collaborative law. This is a preview of an article appearing in the upcoming edition of Roadmap, the Collaborative Institute of Texas newsletter. Like many of you, I have long felt that our wonderful collaborative law process should be made available to every family facing divorce. So, after many years of talking about it, we finally have an opportunity to make that happen here in … [Read more...]
Gauging the Impact of Conflict on Children in Divorce
Collaborative Law Institute of Texas President-Elect Camille Milner, while attending the 2015 IACP Conference earlier this month, was inspired by keynote speaker Donna Hicks to write a blog article from the road. Titled "The Impact of Conflict on Children," the article looks at how children are impacted psychologically by their parents' fights, the similarities between psychological and physical injury, and strategies to help minimize the damages in a divorce. She also highlights a valuable … [Read more...]
Can You Get a Divorce AND Have Joyous Holidays?
This article was written by Tracy Stewart, a College-Station based financial planner, a Brazos Valley Collaborative Divorce Alliance founding member, and a former Collaborative Law Institute of Texas board member specializing in collaborative divorce. Yes. Get a collaborative divorce. Steer clear of a court-system divorce. Avoid draining your savings. Side step family squabbles. Enjoy your holidays. How Does Collaborative Divorce Get You Happy Holidays? In a Collaborative Divorce, you learn … [Read more...]
What to Remember When Divorcing with Children
Divorce can be emotionally challenging when it involves just a couple -- but when that couple has children, it can be even more emotionally taxing for every family member. With that in mind, Collaborative Law Institute of Texas President-Elect Camille Milner posted a recent, excellent article on her blog covering the 10 things to remember when divorcing with children. One of the first rules she gives -- echoed by a therapist writing for the Denton County Collaborative Professionals blog she … [Read more...]
When Emotion Overwhelms Reason (and How to Counter It In Divorce Negotiations)
This article is from Kevin Fuller, founder of Dallas-based Fuller Mediations, a firm that provides a range of mediation services to settle divorces and other disputes, and a former president of the Collaborative Law Institute of Texas. I’ve been involved enough with divorce negotiations to see this more than once: I bring a solid settlement offer to a client, in which we’ve been able to work out a parenting plan and a financial settlement that meets the client’s needs. And yet, it’s rejected, … [Read more...]
Is an Equal Split the Fairest Way to Split?
Dick Price, the Fort Worth-based lawyer and collaborative law proponent, who was one of the first contributors on our blog covering Texas divorce, recently posted an excellent article on his blog about dividing assets in a divorce. One of the biggest questions that comes up in a divorce is how to divide things fairly -- and there's a conception out there that dividing everything in half is what's most fair. But that's not always the case. As he rightly notes, "Texas law does not mandate, or … [Read more...]
