As I mentioned in a previous post I’ve been putting together a list of free divorce, child custody and domestic violence resources from U.S. State Bar Associations. That list is now complete. Continue reading

In a recent post, Child Custody Lawyers Make War, Not Love, the lesson to be learned is that lawyers the world over love conflict. Conflict racks up thousands of extra dollars in billable minutes – at the emotional as well as financial expense of clients, and their children.

If divorcing couples can fight over who gets the TV, lawyers handling child custody have a positive goldmine of conflict or potential conflict to exploit. Continue reading

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports in an article dated July 10 that county judges in parts of Missouri – Madison and St. Clair – have introduced mandatory mediation in all disputed child custody cases.

The move to mandatory mediation is considered a positive action to help minimize the damage and cost of child custody cases.

Mandatory mediation makes sense to me. Too often parents who have Continue reading

Whatever you do to minimize the impact of divorce on children, one effect is unavoidable:change. A child’s sense of safety and security is developed through consistency – a life that is much the same from day-to-day. Consequently, change is unsettling at best, and deeply disturbing at worst. Continue reading

An article in the British Daily Mail is a chilling reminder of what can happen when lawyers, not parents, control child custody cases.

My fight for every father explains how lawyers created such chaos that they drove an ordinary father to the extreme of abducting his own daughter.

What’s frightening is the stark contrast between how things began and how they ended. Continue reading

A study done with more than 200 divorced mothers and their children shows that divorce counselling can help kids avoid trouble when they get into their teen years.

I’ve summarized a report on the study by SAMHSA below and you can read the complete article on this page.

Finding affordable legal help when involved in a divorce or working out child custody issues can be a daunting task.

This can be especially so when parents or children are separated by state lines. Every state has it’s own version of child custody and divorce law. The issues can become very complicated. Continue reading

It’s easy to think of our children as vulnerable and at risk from the effects of divorce, teens included. They’re at an age when they’re forming a strong sense of identity. Will divorce hamper this important process? Not necessarily, according to a study excerpt I came across today.

It suggests that rather than falling victim to divorce, teens can (and often do) manipulate the situation to their advantage. That in this way, divorce is an opportunity for teens to establish and assert their identity, and gain a new found sense of authority. Continue reading