Divorce is a complicated legal matter, the dissolution of a contract, an immense transition for the family involved, and a significant emotional hurdle. If you are facing a divorce, it’s a lot to take on, but an experienced divorce attorney in Chicago can help ensure that your financial rights – as well as your rights as a parent – are well protected and that you obtain divorce terms that work for you.
In the event of divorce, your marital assets must be distributed between you and your divorcing spouse equitably. Equitably means fairly (once a considerable number of relevant factors have been taken into consideration). The assets that you acquire during your marriage are generally considered marital property, and this is true even if only one of you signed for the purchase. While separate property that you bring into the marriage is your own property, this is only true if you are able to keep it separate throughout your marriage, which can be extremely difficult to accomplish in light of the financial entanglements common to marriage.
The State of Illinois has replaced the term child custody with parental responsibilities, decision-making and parenting time. Parental responsibilities refer to making important decisions on behalf of your children, including those related to:
Parenting time determines how you and your divorcing spouse will split your time with the kids. You have the option of dividing the number of overnights you have with the kids down the middle or of one of you taking on a more parenting time.
Child support is the payment system the state uses to help ensure that both parents continue to support their children financially post-divorce. These payments are based on state calculation guidelines, and the primary decision-making factors include the number of overnights each parent has with the children and each parent’s income. It is called the Income Shares Model. Child support payments are generally the responsibility of the higher earner (even if your parenting time is divided equally).
In Illinois, alimony is called maintenance, which is also known as spousal support, and while it isn’t particularly common, it can play an important role in those divorces in which one spouse has an income financial disparity and the duration of the marriage matches that while the other has the means to help alleviate the problem. Alimony, Maintenance and Spousal Support is generally set for an amount of time that is intended to allow the recipient to gain increased financial independence via further education or job training.
If you and your spouse are able to negotiate your own divorce terms, you can keep the matter between yourselves (with the experienced guidance of your respective divorce attorneys). If not, however, you will need the court to address all remaining unresolved terms.
The trusted divorce attorneys at WARD FAMILY LAW in Chicago have the experience, legal insight, and compassion that you are looking for, so please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information today.
I am writing a review because I think a lot of times people make the same mistake that I did at the beginning of my case. I had a wonderful talk with Jennifer before my case started and I was very comfortable with her demeanor and her explanations of the Chicago Divorce process. I decided to go with another lawyer because the retainer was a little lower. Big mistake. I didn’t really like the lawyer when we spoke but I was more focused on the money instead of the big picture. I felt like there was no communication during my…
My Husband, now ex, and I wanted a friendly, fast divorce. We had nothing to fight about and nothing really to divide. We thought that would make it easy but when we saw all the paperwork we knew that we needed help. It takes one piece of paper to get married and 100 pieces of paper to get divorced in Chicago!! Ward Family Law made the divorce a smooth process for us and got it done faster than we thought. If you want to be friends with your ex but still want the divorce then look no further and call…
I had a very complicated divorce with a lot of family-owned businesses and assets. Jennifer and her team of professionals help navigate the formal discovery and litigation process with great knowledge, strategy, and patience with all our questions. My family was very concerned about the impact and outcome and we are all pleased with the results. From the appraisers to the business valuators, Jennifer utilized the right people at the right time to shore up our case for the best settlement position at pre-trial. We were happy with the Judge's recommendations, we believe, based on all her hard work and…
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