Best Divorce Lawyer Near Me

Best Divorce Lawyer Near Me

Divorce is a serious transition that affects your financial rights as well as your rights as a parent. While the emotional component is often intense, it’s important to pay careful attention to the legal aspects and to your divorce terms, which will guide your future. If you’re on the lookout for the best divorce lawyer near me, it’s time to reach out to an experienced Chicago divorce lawyer for the professional legal guidance that you need. 

Negotiating Your Divorce Terms

Every divorce is as unique as the marriage involved, but the terms of divorce do not vary, including (as applicable):

• The division of marital property
• Parental responsibilities: decision-making and parenting time (what you may think of as child custody)
• Child support
• Alimony or Spousal Support (called maintenance in Illinois)
• Business valuations
• Retirement and investment allocations
• Child Custody, also known as an allocation of parental responsibilities of decision-making and parenting time
• Dissipation

If you and your divorcing spouse – with the professional legal guidance of your respective divorce lawyers – are able to reach a compromise on each of the terms that apply to your divorce, you’ll be able to bypass the court’s intervention and keep the negotiations between yourselves. There is also the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) option of mediation. Any terms that you are unable to resolve outside of court will ultimately need to be determined by the judge presiding over your case. 

The Division of Your Marital Property

Those assets that you and your spouse accumulated during your marriage are most likely considered marital property, and they will need to be divided equitably between you upon divorce. Any separate property that you brought with you into the marriage and kept separate throughout remains separate, though there are caveats that can put it at risk. This division of property is often one of the most hotly contested divorce issues and you should contact an experienced divorce attorney to ensure protections and an understanding of the process.

Parental Responsibility: Parenting Time and Decision-Making

Parental responsibility is Illinois is an allocation of parenting time and decision-making (which are the legal and physical custody items previously discussed). The decision-making aspect of parental responsibility can be either taken on by one parent or shared, and the kinds of decisions involved include:

• Decisions about your children’s schooling
• Decisions about your children’s religious upbringing
• Decisions about your children’s extracurriculars
• Decisions about your children’s health care

Parenting time is Illinois’ term for physical custody, which concerns itself with how you and your ex will divide your time with your children. There is room for personalizing your parenting time schedules to meet your family’s needs. 

Child Support

Both parents are responsible for their children’s financial support, and because child support is calculated in accordance with state guidelines that take each parent’s income into consideration, the higher earner is typically responsible for making child support payments though the number of overnight parenting time is now a factor. 

Maintenance or Alimony or Spousal Support

Spousal maintenance or alimony or spousal support is generally reserved for those instances when one spouse lacks the financial ability to support himself or herself upon divorce, and the other has the ability to offset the financial deficit, while the recipient obtains the education or job training to become more financially independent.  Illinois is unique in it’s statutory calculations. 

Reach out to the Best Divorce Lawyer Near You

The trusted divorce lawyers at WARD FAMILY LAW, LLC, in Chicago have the experience, legal skill, and drive to help protect your parental and financial rights throughout the divorce process. To learn more, please don’t wait to contact us today.