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713 - What Are the Main Issues?The key issues in most divorces break down into four main groups: parenting, division of property, child support, and spousal support. The first is your parenting plan ‑‑ who's going to spend what time with your children and how you're going to make major decisions about the children. First you have to establish where the children are going to live, and then you need to work out how the other parent will be able to spend time with them. Both Jefferson and Shelby County have standard visitation that they favor, and the typical pattern is first and third weekend of each month, every other Spring Break, every other Thanksgiving, a week around Christmas, and up to a month in the summer. There's a more limited visitation plan for children who are less than three years old, and even a special plan for children who live of state. You can get the text of the standard visitation patterns that Jefferson and Shelby Counties use on divorceinfo.com. The next key issue is division of property and debts. This is where divorcing couples often spend the bulk of their negotiating time, particularly after a lengthy marriage. Smart couples don't fight in court over this; they simply sit down with each other, or with the help of a third party if that's needed, make an honest valuation of the assets and debts of the marriage, and figure out a reasonable division that makes sense to both of them. People often assume everything has to come out equal, that the husband and the wife need to end up with equal values in assets. You can choose to do this, of course, but there's nothing that requires an equal division. There's lots of information about property division here on the Divorce Line. The next key issue is child support. This one is usually straightforward, because for the vast majority of divorces, child support is a simple mathematical calculation that most anybody can do. There's also lots of information here about child support. The last key issue is spousal support, or alimony. Unlike child support, alimony is very much in the discretion of the court, and it's rarely granted unless one of the spouses has been economically dependent on the other for most of a lengthy marriage. There's also a separate message called "Can I Get Alimony?" Alabama Family Law Center serves clients who need to get through divorce and who are able to be reasonably cooperative. The goal is for both spouses to survive divorce and move on with their lives with some money in their pockets and their dignity intact. No representation is made that the quality of the legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers. If you'd like to make an appointment with me, call 205-979-6960. Or you can click here to return to the Divorce Line. |
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