Here's a sampling of some of the most recently available statistics on marriage and divorce in the United States of America (Source is the U.S. Census Bureau & National Center for Health Statistics):
* There were approximately 2,230,000 marriages in 2005 -- down from 2,279,000 the previous year, despite a total population increase of 2.9 million over the same period.
* The divorce rate in 2005 (per 1,000 people) was 3.6 -- the lowest rate since 1970, and down from 4.2 in 2000 and from 4.7 in 1990. (The peak was at 5.3 in 1981, according to the Associated Press.)
* The marriage rate in 2005 (per 1,000) was 7.5, down from 7.8 the previous year.
* In 2004, the state with the highest reported divorce rate was Nevada, at 6.4 (per 1,000). Arkansas was a close second, with a divorce rate of 6.3, followed by Wyoming at 5.3. The District of Columbia had the lowest reported divorce rate, at 1.7, followed by Massachusetts at 2.2 and Pennsylvania at 2.5. (Figures were not complete for California, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, or Oklahoma.)
* 8.1% of coupled households consist of unmarried heterosexual partners, according to The State of Our Unions 2005, a report issued by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. The same study said that only 63% of American children grow up with both biological parents -- the lowest figure in the Western world.
* As of 2003, 43.7% of custodial mothers and 56.2% of custodial fathers were either separated or divorced. And in 2002, 7.8 million Americans paid about $40 billion in child support and/or spousal support (84% of the payers were male).
* Americans tend to get married more between June and October than during the rest of the year. In 2005, August had the most marriages at about 235,000 or a rate of 9.3 per 1,000 people. The previous year, July was the highest month at 246,000, or a rate of 9.9; this doubled the lowest month in 2004, January.
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Updating Your Estate Planning Documents After a Divorce
At the conclusion of your divorce, there are still several things you need to do to "finalize" the big change in your life.
One of those things is to make changes to your estate planning documents.
In many instances, married couples have executed Wills, Trusts, General Power of Attorneys and Health Care Power of Attorneys, appointing their respective spouse as the Personal Representative/Attorney. Additionally, the spouse is to receive the entirety of the decedent's estate.
It is imperative that all of these estate planning documents be revised. There is no need to wait until the completion of the divorce to do this. This can be commenced at any time. In my opinion, the earlier the better.
Client's also need to check (and possibly change) their beneficiary designations on any life insurance policies, bank accounts and retirement accounts.
If you have questions regarding these issues please contact an experienced attorney in your area.
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
One of those things is to make changes to your estate planning documents.
In many instances, married couples have executed Wills, Trusts, General Power of Attorneys and Health Care Power of Attorneys, appointing their respective spouse as the Personal Representative/Attorney. Additionally, the spouse is to receive the entirety of the decedent's estate.
It is imperative that all of these estate planning documents be revised. There is no need to wait until the completion of the divorce to do this. This can be commenced at any time. In my opinion, the earlier the better.
Client's also need to check (and possibly change) their beneficiary designations on any life insurance policies, bank accounts and retirement accounts.
If you have questions regarding these issues please contact an experienced attorney in your area.
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
Friday, March 12, 2010
Can I Choose to Not Work to Get Out of Paying Child Support?
Nice try but no.
The Arizona Child Support Guidelines paragraph 5(E) states, “If a parent is unemployed or working below full earning capacity, the court may consider the reasons. If earnings are reduced as a matter of choice and not for reasonable cause, the court may attribute income to a parent up to his or her earning capacity.” Additionally, the paragraph states, “[i]n accordance with Arizona Revised Statutes Section 25-320, income of at least minimum wage shall be attributed to a parent ordered to pay child support.”
A.R.S. 25-320(N) states, “[t]he court shall presume, in the absence of contrary testimony, that a parent is capable of full-time employment at least at the applicable state or federal adult minimum wage, whichever is higher.”
So, for example, if you used to have a job making $50,000.00 a year and you voluntarily chose to stop working, the Court may attribute you $50,000.00 a year in income for child support calculation purposes.
Additionally, at a very minimum, the Court will attribute minimum wage income to you unless you have some sort of condition that prevents you from being able to work.
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
The Arizona Child Support Guidelines paragraph 5(E) states, “If a parent is unemployed or working below full earning capacity, the court may consider the reasons. If earnings are reduced as a matter of choice and not for reasonable cause, the court may attribute income to a parent up to his or her earning capacity.” Additionally, the paragraph states, “[i]n accordance with Arizona Revised Statutes Section 25-320, income of at least minimum wage shall be attributed to a parent ordered to pay child support.”
A.R.S. 25-320(N) states, “[t]he court shall presume, in the absence of contrary testimony, that a parent is capable of full-time employment at least at the applicable state or federal adult minimum wage, whichever is higher.”
So, for example, if you used to have a job making $50,000.00 a year and you voluntarily chose to stop working, the Court may attribute you $50,000.00 a year in income for child support calculation purposes.
Additionally, at a very minimum, the Court will attribute minimum wage income to you unless you have some sort of condition that prevents you from being able to work.
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
Monday, March 8, 2010
Religion and Divorce
This is an interesting article that was in Newsweek by Dahlia Lithwick titled, "Whose God Wins?":
Joseph Reyes, an Afghanistan veteran and law student, converted to Judaism when he married Rebecca Shapiro in 2004. When they split up in 2008, Rebecca won primary custody of their daughter and Joseph got regular visitation. The Reyeses had allegedly agreed to raise their child Jewish, but Joseph, seeking to expose his 3-year-old to his Catholic faith, had her baptized last November. When Rebecca found out, she obtained a temporary restraining order prohibiting Joseph from "exposing Ela Reyes to any other religion other than the Jewish religion during his visitation." But Joseph then took his daughter to Catholic mass on Jan. 17, with a local TV news crew in tow, prompting his ex-wife's lawyers to demand he be held in criminal contempt—with a maximum punishment of six months in prison. Can a court decide what religion your child will be?
Joseph Reyes says no, and once he decided to fight for his religious liberty in the courts of cable television, complicated legal issues were reduced to black and white. Headlines shrieked that a father faced jail time for exposing his daughter to God. The case sounds very constitutional. But instead of legal analysis we've mostly gotten typically nasty divorce-court spitballs. For instance, Joseph now says he wasn't really Jewish. He says he converted to Judaism "under duress" to mollify his in-laws, and that Rebecca is a bully. And he and his lawyer requested, and won, a new judge because the original judge, Edward Jordan, is Jewish. None of this has anything to do with the actual case, but it does get the blood pressure soaring.
Since Joseph doesn't dispute that he violated the restraining order, the only important issue here is whether a family-court judge can order divorcing spouses to raise a child in just one religion. In her court pleadings, Rebecca Reyes argues that she has sole custody of Ela, that the couple agreed to raise the child Jewish and sent her to a Jewish preschool, and that exposure to another religion would "confuse" her.
Joseph, in his pleadings, says Ela was not harmed by her baptism, and that under Illinois law a noncustodial parent can attend religious services with his or her child unless there is "proof of harm to the child" or it "interferes with the custodial parent's selection of the child's religion." Finally, Joseph says the restraining order violates his religious freedom. And that's the stuff headlines are made of.
I polled family lawyers as to how often they had come across an order like Judge Jordan's. Some said it's uncommon; others disagreed. But one thing is clear: family courts interfere with constitutional freedoms all the time. A family-court judge infringes on your right to free speech when he bars you from speaking ill of your ex-husband in front on the kids. She can prevent you from interstate travel if you seek to move your child away from your ex. The Bill of Rights isn't the last word in divorce proceedings, but when a court restrains fundamental constitutional freedoms, like speech, travel, or religion, it's usually for an important reason: the best interest of your child. This is the interest we hear about least in the Reyes case, amid the fulminating over parental rights.
As Joseph Gitlin, a prominent Chicago family lawyer, points out, in Illinois the custodial parent is permitted, by statute, to "determine the child's upbringing, including, but not limited to, his education, health care, and religious training." This necessarily means the other parent will be shut out of such decisions. The tricky question in the Reyes case is whether religion is more a zero-sum proposition or a buffet table. How does exposing a child to two religions differ from exposing her to two languages or teaching her to play two instruments?
Missouri family lawyer Michael Albano warns that back when family-court judges could micromanage parental religious practices, lesbians, for instance, were denied custody and could not even associate with their partners. "Courts cannot police every situation," he says, and that means "generally allowing both parents to expose the child to their religious beliefs." When forced to, some state courts have struck down divorce decrees requiring a single religion for a child; others have upheld them. As Judge Jordan learned, attempting to balance one parent's religious freedom against the other parent's religious exceptionalism rarely works, because, as Joe Gitlin puts it, for most of us "there's always only one way to heaven, and it's mine." But either way, every lawyer I spoke to agreed that there are plenty of good ways to modify custody arrangements. Violating those arrangements on live television isn't one of them
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
Joseph Reyes, an Afghanistan veteran and law student, converted to Judaism when he married Rebecca Shapiro in 2004. When they split up in 2008, Rebecca won primary custody of their daughter and Joseph got regular visitation. The Reyeses had allegedly agreed to raise their child Jewish, but Joseph, seeking to expose his 3-year-old to his Catholic faith, had her baptized last November. When Rebecca found out, she obtained a temporary restraining order prohibiting Joseph from "exposing Ela Reyes to any other religion other than the Jewish religion during his visitation." But Joseph then took his daughter to Catholic mass on Jan. 17, with a local TV news crew in tow, prompting his ex-wife's lawyers to demand he be held in criminal contempt—with a maximum punishment of six months in prison. Can a court decide what religion your child will be?
Joseph Reyes says no, and once he decided to fight for his religious liberty in the courts of cable television, complicated legal issues were reduced to black and white. Headlines shrieked that a father faced jail time for exposing his daughter to God. The case sounds very constitutional. But instead of legal analysis we've mostly gotten typically nasty divorce-court spitballs. For instance, Joseph now says he wasn't really Jewish. He says he converted to Judaism "under duress" to mollify his in-laws, and that Rebecca is a bully. And he and his lawyer requested, and won, a new judge because the original judge, Edward Jordan, is Jewish. None of this has anything to do with the actual case, but it does get the blood pressure soaring.
Since Joseph doesn't dispute that he violated the restraining order, the only important issue here is whether a family-court judge can order divorcing spouses to raise a child in just one religion. In her court pleadings, Rebecca Reyes argues that she has sole custody of Ela, that the couple agreed to raise the child Jewish and sent her to a Jewish preschool, and that exposure to another religion would "confuse" her.
Joseph, in his pleadings, says Ela was not harmed by her baptism, and that under Illinois law a noncustodial parent can attend religious services with his or her child unless there is "proof of harm to the child" or it "interferes with the custodial parent's selection of the child's religion." Finally, Joseph says the restraining order violates his religious freedom. And that's the stuff headlines are made of.
I polled family lawyers as to how often they had come across an order like Judge Jordan's. Some said it's uncommon; others disagreed. But one thing is clear: family courts interfere with constitutional freedoms all the time. A family-court judge infringes on your right to free speech when he bars you from speaking ill of your ex-husband in front on the kids. She can prevent you from interstate travel if you seek to move your child away from your ex. The Bill of Rights isn't the last word in divorce proceedings, but when a court restrains fundamental constitutional freedoms, like speech, travel, or religion, it's usually for an important reason: the best interest of your child. This is the interest we hear about least in the Reyes case, amid the fulminating over parental rights.
As Joseph Gitlin, a prominent Chicago family lawyer, points out, in Illinois the custodial parent is permitted, by statute, to "determine the child's upbringing, including, but not limited to, his education, health care, and religious training." This necessarily means the other parent will be shut out of such decisions. The tricky question in the Reyes case is whether religion is more a zero-sum proposition or a buffet table. How does exposing a child to two religions differ from exposing her to two languages or teaching her to play two instruments?
Missouri family lawyer Michael Albano warns that back when family-court judges could micromanage parental religious practices, lesbians, for instance, were denied custody and could not even associate with their partners. "Courts cannot police every situation," he says, and that means "generally allowing both parents to expose the child to their religious beliefs." When forced to, some state courts have struck down divorce decrees requiring a single religion for a child; others have upheld them. As Judge Jordan learned, attempting to balance one parent's religious freedom against the other parent's religious exceptionalism rarely works, because, as Joe Gitlin puts it, for most of us "there's always only one way to heaven, and it's mine." But either way, every lawyer I spoke to agreed that there are plenty of good ways to modify custody arrangements. Violating those arrangements on live television isn't one of them
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
Thursday, March 4, 2010
What is a Covenant Marriage and Can I Get Out of One?
In Arizona, couples may elect to enter into a Covenant Marriage.
A.R.S. 25-901 states, "[p]ersons who have the legal right capacity to marry pursuant to this title may enter into a covenant marriage by declaring their intent to do so on their application for a license...and by complying with the requirements of this chapter."
The requirements set forth in the statute are that:
1) That the declaration of intent include the language, "[w]e solemnly declare that marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman who agree to live together as husband and wife for as long as they both live. We have chosen each other carefully and have received premarital counseling on the nature, purposes and responsibilities of marriage. We understand that a covenant marriage is for life. If we experience marital difficulties, we commit ourselves to take all reasonable efforts to preserver our marriage, including marital counseling. With full knowledge of what this commitment means, we do declare that our marriage will be bound by Arizona law on covenant marriages and we promise to love, honor and care for one another as husband and wife for the rest of our lives."
2) An affidavit by the parties that they have received premarital counseling from a member of the clergy or from a marriage counselor. Premarital counseling shall include a discussion of the seriousness of covenant marriage, communication of the fact that a covenant marriage is a commitment for life, a discussion of the obligation to seek marital counseling in times of marital difficulties and a discussion of the exclusive grounds for legally terminating a covenant marriage by dissolution of marriage or legal separation."
The ramification of entering into a covenant marriage is that you can only get divorced under certain circumstances.
These circumstances are set forth in A.R.S. 25-903.
They are:
1. The respondent spouse has committed adultery.
2. The respondent spouse has committed a felony and has been sentenced to death or imprisonment in any federal, state, county or municipal correctional facility.
3. The respondent spouse has abandoned the matrimonial domicile for at least one year before the petitioner filed for dissolution of marriage and refuses to return. A party may file a petition based on this ground by alleging that the respondent spouse has left the matrimonial domicile and is expected to remain absent for the required period. If the respondent spouse has not abandoned the matrimonial domicile for the required period at the time of the filing of the petition, the action shall not be dismissed for failure to state sufficient grounds and the action shall be stayed for the period of time remaining to meet the grounds based on abandonment, except that the court may enter and enforce temporary orders pursuant to section 25-315 during the time that the action is pending.
4. The respondent spouse has physically or sexually abused the spouse seeking the dissolution of marriage, a child, a relative of either spouse permanently living in the matrimonial domicile or has committed domestic violence as defined in section 13-3601 or emotional abuse.
5. The spouses have been living separate and apart continuously without reconciliation for at least two years before the petitioner filed for dissolution of marriage. A party may file a petition based on this ground by alleging that it is expected that the parties will be living separate and apart for the required period. If the parties have not been separated for the required period at the time of the filing of the petition, the action shall not be dismissed for failure to state sufficient grounds and the action shall be stayed for the period of time remaining to meet the grounds based on separation, except that the court may enter and enforce temporary orders pursuant to section 25-315 during the time that the action is pending.
6. The spouses have been living separate and apart continuously without reconciliation for at least one year from the date the decree of legal separation was entered.
7. The respondent spouse has habitually abused drugs or alcohol.
8. The husband and wife both agree to a dissolution of marriage.
If you are considering entering into a covenant marriage and what to talk about the ramifications first, or if you are desiring to get out of a covenant marriage, please feel free to contact me for a free consultation.
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
A.R.S. 25-901 states, "[p]ersons who have the legal right capacity to marry pursuant to this title may enter into a covenant marriage by declaring their intent to do so on their application for a license...and by complying with the requirements of this chapter."
The requirements set forth in the statute are that:
1) That the declaration of intent include the language, "[w]e solemnly declare that marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman who agree to live together as husband and wife for as long as they both live. We have chosen each other carefully and have received premarital counseling on the nature, purposes and responsibilities of marriage. We understand that a covenant marriage is for life. If we experience marital difficulties, we commit ourselves to take all reasonable efforts to preserver our marriage, including marital counseling. With full knowledge of what this commitment means, we do declare that our marriage will be bound by Arizona law on covenant marriages and we promise to love, honor and care for one another as husband and wife for the rest of our lives."
2) An affidavit by the parties that they have received premarital counseling from a member of the clergy or from a marriage counselor. Premarital counseling shall include a discussion of the seriousness of covenant marriage, communication of the fact that a covenant marriage is a commitment for life, a discussion of the obligation to seek marital counseling in times of marital difficulties and a discussion of the exclusive grounds for legally terminating a covenant marriage by dissolution of marriage or legal separation."
The ramification of entering into a covenant marriage is that you can only get divorced under certain circumstances.
These circumstances are set forth in A.R.S. 25-903.
They are:
1. The respondent spouse has committed adultery.
2. The respondent spouse has committed a felony and has been sentenced to death or imprisonment in any federal, state, county or municipal correctional facility.
3. The respondent spouse has abandoned the matrimonial domicile for at least one year before the petitioner filed for dissolution of marriage and refuses to return. A party may file a petition based on this ground by alleging that the respondent spouse has left the matrimonial domicile and is expected to remain absent for the required period. If the respondent spouse has not abandoned the matrimonial domicile for the required period at the time of the filing of the petition, the action shall not be dismissed for failure to state sufficient grounds and the action shall be stayed for the period of time remaining to meet the grounds based on abandonment, except that the court may enter and enforce temporary orders pursuant to section 25-315 during the time that the action is pending.
4. The respondent spouse has physically or sexually abused the spouse seeking the dissolution of marriage, a child, a relative of either spouse permanently living in the matrimonial domicile or has committed domestic violence as defined in section 13-3601 or emotional abuse.
5. The spouses have been living separate and apart continuously without reconciliation for at least two years before the petitioner filed for dissolution of marriage. A party may file a petition based on this ground by alleging that it is expected that the parties will be living separate and apart for the required period. If the parties have not been separated for the required period at the time of the filing of the petition, the action shall not be dismissed for failure to state sufficient grounds and the action shall be stayed for the period of time remaining to meet the grounds based on separation, except that the court may enter and enforce temporary orders pursuant to section 25-315 during the time that the action is pending.
6. The spouses have been living separate and apart continuously without reconciliation for at least one year from the date the decree of legal separation was entered.
7. The respondent spouse has habitually abused drugs or alcohol.
8. The husband and wife both agree to a dissolution of marriage.
If you are considering entering into a covenant marriage and what to talk about the ramifications first, or if you are desiring to get out of a covenant marriage, please feel free to contact me for a free consultation.
Jason Pistiner, Esq.
SINGER PISTINER, P.C.
602-264-0110
jp@singerpistiner.com
www.singerpistiner.com
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