Tag Archives: Wheaton family law attorney

How to Apply for Domestic Partnerships and Civil Unions

There is a lot of information that many people may not be aware of with regard to domestic partnerships and civil unions. In order to file for a civil union partnership certificate, depending on the living situation, one needs to thoroughly understand the process. One also needs to know how to apply for a domestic partnership, depending on his or her circumstances.

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Communication, Divorce and Mediation

Communication is key to a healthy marriage and should always be held dear to each spouse. However, any heated argument between both spouses can make for a very frustrating relationship, especially when the decision to dissolve the marriage has already been made.

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DuPage County Prenuptial Agreement Q & A

Getting married is one of the most exciting times in someone’s life. Soon-to-be married couples eagerly anticipate spending the rest of their lives together and creating lasting memories. Yet before marriage, many couples decide that it is in their best interest to draft agreements on certain assets, and they often have questions that they are afraid to ask.

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Millennials Are Waiting Longer for Marriage Than Their Parents Did

The Millennial generation certainly has its own ideas about marriage, and, in many ways, they are not like those of their parents. An interesting shift is taking place in the way younger people perceive marriage and its importance. Throughout the last 60 years, several trends have arisen. People, in general, are waiting longer to get married, divorce is more common, and couples are having fewer children. During the 1950s, 75 percent of women in their early 20s were married whereas only 50 percent are now.

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Modifying Your Parenting Plan in Illinois

While there are specified time limits on how often you can modify your allocation of parental responsibilities under Illinois law, there are several exceptions to these limits. Since circumstances concerning children change over time, the allocation of parental responsibilities also is likely to change over time. In some cases, however, parents cannot agree on how or whether to change the existing allocation of parental responsibilities, which requires the court to make a decision on the issue for the parties, often with the help of a guardian ad litem or another professional who can make recommendations to the court.

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Understanding Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements

Marriage is a celebration of love and commitment between two partners hoping to spend their lives together. While most couples enter marriage with the best of intentions,  divorce statistics in the United States show that many couples do not have a happily ever after. For this reason, many divorce attorneys and other specialists encourage couples to consider prenuptial or postnuptial agreements. While discussing the dissolution of your marriage before it has begun can seem unpleasant, when properly drafted and implemented, a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement can truly benefit both spouses. Prenuptial and postnuptial agreements are no longer only utilized by America’s wealthiest couples. Here is what you need to know.

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Terminating a Child Support Obligation

If you have a child in Illinois and separate from the child’s other parent, one of you will be ordered to pay child support to the parent who has primary custody over the child. Illinois child support is calculated as a percentage of the payor parent’s take-home pay. The precise percentage depends on the total number of children the parents have in common (not necessarily the total number of children of the payor parent).

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Petitioning for Change in Child Custody

Few issues in an Illinois divorce are as contentious as determining which parent will have primary custody of the couple’s children following their divorce or legal separation. Even when this issue has been initially decided, custody can be an issue that is litigated over and over throughout the child’s youth. There are a variety of reasons why noncustodial parents seek to change custody orders:

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Property Division or Custody Dispute: Who Gets the Embryos?

An old country song wonders, in the event of a breakup, “Who gets the family Bible?” The country crooner and his ex may have been experiencing a genuine property division dispute. In our modern times, however, property division disputes have become much more complicated in some cases. For example, where a couple plans on having children in the future and embryos are frozen in anticipation of a future family, who gets the embryos – the couple’s planned family – if the couple divorces or separates? Several states are now grappling with this question.

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