Will County Divorce Lawyers - Andreano and Lyons - Attorneys

The Will County Clerk's Office helps schedule final court dates ("prove-up") in agreed or default divorce cases. You have a choice to schedule one with the judge that has your case or with the prove-up judge whose court dates are listed below through the end of 2010. The benefit of the prove-up judge is that is all he does on these dates. Your regular judge handles much more in a morning and so you can get delayed in court. In either case, you must have all your paperwork together and in proper order before any judge will approve your divorce . 2010 Prove-up dates: June 11, 17, 29, 30 July 15, 29, 30 Aug 13, 30 Sept 16, 29, 30 October 21, 29 November 29 December 10, 16, 30 To schedule you must call the motion desk at (815) 740-8015

Evidence that your spouse is cheating is not always very relevant in divorce cases. Illinois is a "no fault" state meaning that even if your wife has slept with every sailer in the Navy, it doesn't necessarily mean much to the judge. However, in certain cases it does have an impact such as where there is a premarital agreement that makes it relevant or there is a custody dispute and your moral character comes into light. However, it may be relevant to the judge if the kids are exposed to the cheating. It can also show up in the dissipation (wasting) of marital assets. Court's will take notice of marital money spent on the cheating spouse's significant other. Dissipation occurs when one spouse spends marital money on a non-marital expense at the time the marriage has broken down. There's a lot more to it than that so you should consult with an attorney if this is going on. What can you do to avoid the problem? Not cheat is one suggestion. Also, there are now ...

The Sun-Times reported today on a case where a law student in a Cook County custody dispute landed himself in trouble. The trouble surrounds allegations that he defied a court order regarding the upbringing of the divorced couple's child in the Jewish faith. It was reported that the custody arrangement provided for the child to be raised Jewish but that the father had the child baptized Catholic without mom’s consent and on another occasion brought a TV news crew with him when he took the child to a Catholic Church for mass. This allegedly violated the court’s orders. If you knowingly violate a court order you disagree with and have no valid excuse to do so, there is generally punishment – sometimes a jail sentence. Disagreeing with the court's order is NOT a valid excuse. Obviously even attorneys are not immune from the rancor and emotional blinding a custody dispute can cause. But to openly disobey a court order AND have it televised, is pretty extreme. Which brings me to ...

In a split decision, the Illinois Supreme court ruled this month that accrued sick days are NOT marital property that your spouse can get a share of in a divorce. Since it was a split decision, there is still some debate about it but the law will be clear nevertheless. In the case the husband had banked over 100 sick days at his government job (good gig if you can get it) The supreme court said no deal to the trial court's split because the value assigned to the sick days would be too speculative and that it was unknown whether the husband would ever use his sick days before he terminated his employment or retired. Therefore, wife did not get a piece of it. Of course, reading through the case, it seems like the value of what the party's were fighting over was about $15,000. Taking a case up the Illinois Supreme Court case is VERY expensive. This is likely one of those cases where the parties spent upwards of $30,000 on attorney fees to fight over $15,000. Who made out in t...

The court can award college contributions at any time until the child receives a 4 year degree (not graduate degree contributions) and courts generally will not order a parent to pay toward a child that takes more than 4 years to complete a 4 year degree. The educational expenses may include room, board, dues, tuition, transportation, books, fees, registration and application costs, medical expenses including medical insurance, dental expenses, and living expenses during the school year and periods of recess. There is much more to it than that and courts weighs a number of factors including: (1) The financial resources of both parents. (2) The standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved. (3) The financial resources of the child. (4) The child's academic performance. A question I often also get is "What about the income of my new spouse?” While the new spouse's income is not directly considered in the equation, many judge'...

House bill 5078 would require a parent owing back child support in an amount exceeding $10,000 to file a bond (as security) in the amount owed before that parent can seek to change visitation or custody. If this passes it will be confirmation that the Illinois General Assembly has collectively lost its mind. An issue which requires precision handling (parents using custody to prevent collection of child support) is met with a hack-saw (throwing a child's best interest out the window to prevent a change of custody when otherwise needed). Why not just make the payment of support (or non-payment) a factor in custody determinations? Where a change of custody is brought with a backdrop of unpaid child support obligations, many times it is because the parent without custody wants to avoid future support, not do what's best for the children. Simply put, courts are best placed to make that call on a case-by-case determination, not the legislature on an all-or-nothing basis.

Orders of protection are very powerful tools in custody disputes but they must be used wisely - if at all. In a recently reported case, a mother lost custody of her children because of repeated arrests for shoplifting. In re Marriage of Holtrof (Kane County, 2010 - see link below) At least one of the arrests happened when one the children was with her at time of arrest and once when she left some of the children in the car with the engine running while she was in the store. The appellate court stated that such activities equaled "abuse" because the arrests occurred with the children present (it was not "neglect" because neglect only applies to adults with disabilities.) This case is a good illustration of the general principle that custody cases can get into much of the detail of one’s life even if not directly related to the children. Essentially, if it is done in front of the children, it might be relevant to the court in a custody dispute. I have seen this wher...