One of the hardest lessons I learned in my early days of practicing family law is that a case is never really over when we think it’s over. I remember walking out of my first uncontested hearing so proud that I helped finalize a client’s divorce, emotional for their loss (yes, it happened to be
For decades, when a custodial parent wanted to move out of state, it would not be unusual to hear that if the court or other party won’t let me leave New Jersey, she will just move to Cape May, or some other point far away from North or Central Jersey. When someone wanted to move
Last week, Eric Solotoff and I achieved victory in the Appellate Division in the unreported (non-precedential) decision of Gatto v. Breton, wherein the Court reversed the trial court’s order permitting the Plaintiff father to obtain a custody evaluation without the requisite finding of changed circumstances.
By way of background, the parties were divorced in
I have written many times over the years regarding parent coordination, both during and after the end of the Supreme Court pilot program. A parent coordinator is a person, sometimes a mental health professional and sometimes a lawyer, that is appointed to assist parties in high conflict custody disputes. The description and function of
Grandparent visitation is a unique area of family law that presents interesting case law every few years and seems to be growing with time and modern families. We have blogged about this issue, including the requirement to show harm to the child if the grandparent doesn’t have visitation and procedure for grandparent visitation applications,
When networking or meeting with a potential client, I am often asked: “Why should I hire you?” Most people think that more experience is always better and, at first blush, that makes sense. After all, if I were having surgery, I’d certainly want to go under the knife with a credentialed surgeon instead of a
In a new, published (precedential) decision, J.G. v. J.H., Judge Koblitz, of the Appellate Division confirmed and explicitly held what we all should have known before: No matter what type of case, the same rules apply with respect to discovery and investigation, and the trial court judge is under the same obligation to apply
Just over a year after the New Jersey Supreme Court changed the standard to be applied in removal, or interstate relocation, cases, the Appellate Division in Dever v. Howell (an Appellate Division set to be published and, thus, will be precedential) is here to remind us that the burden to show cause for the proposed
A judge’s favorite line when custody is an issue is some variation of the following: No one is better equipped to make decisions about your children than their two parents, and certainly not the judge who does not know your family from the next family in line. They are not wrong, and they will do
It’s ok if you missed my New Jersey Law Journal article “Helicopter vs. Free Range Parenting: Endorsement of Parenting Style in the Law” published July 13, 2018. It’s been a busy summer. Now that you’re back in the swing of things, take the time to read this. I hope you’ll agree it provides