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If it’s an uncontested divorce, then the procedure really depends upon your specific circumstances. We would have you come into our office, meet with us, and learn about your goals in terms of what you are looking to achieve in the divorce, and then reach out to your spouse and see if we can reach some time of amicable resolution. Sometimes that’s achieved by way of letter-writing, or a settlement conference. There might be a need to disclose certain assets. There might be a need to demand the production of certain items. Once those items are exchanged and there’s a conversation regarding the specific issue, hopefully you would be able to achieve a favorable settlement outside of court without the need of going to a judge. However, if the matter does become contested, then there’s a different rubric – if a matter is contested and it is before a court. In that type of proceeding for a divorce, what occurs initially is a preliminary conference. At that preliminary conference, both parties are obligated to produce a statement of net worth regarding assets, regarding expenses, regarding liabilities. It really is an important document for both spouses. Also at the preliminary conference a road map is set up, in terms of what you can expect moving forward– what dates discovery is due, what dates depositions will be, and what you would be looking at in terms of the trial. You can always settle your matter without the need for the judge to issue a decision.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977. We look forward to speaking with you.

An uncontested divorce is a divorce that is resolved without ever stepping into the courtroom.  A common misconception that parties have is that their divorce is uncontested just because both parties want to be divorced. That is an important first step in the process.

However, in order for a case to remain uncontested, the parties must have a mutual understanding and agreement as to the issues in their case. These issues can involve custody, child support, maintenance, the sale of the marital residence, equitable distribution of the assets, including retirement accounts, and there are many other issues.

It is my job as your attorney to come up with the details and language of the stipulation that best protects you.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

People often ask me “How long does a divorce take in New York?”  Unfortunately it’s not an easy answer to give.  It depends on the amount of conflict and the amount of complexity in the case. An uncontested divorce can take as short as three months.  A contested case can take a year and a half or longer.

Uncontested cases are shorter because people aren’t fighting, they agree on a basic outline of the issues.  There might be a problem with resolving the particulars of a parenting plan, or just how much exactly to pay in maintenance or child support.  Those things can be resolved pretty quickly with a four-way conference, and then paperwork, including the stipulation of settlement — that is the agreement that resolves the case —  is prepared shortly thereafter, and then documents, including the judgment of divorce, are also prepared, submitted to the court.  Usually within a couple of months we have a judge signing off on it from there.

A contested case, well, it really depends on how much you and your spouse want to fight. People will have custody trials that can last months, six months or a year even, depending on the availability of calendar time for your particular trial.

My recommendation is: Try to find an attorney that will help you resolve issues rather than fan the fires.  That way, your case will be over sooner, and cheaper.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

If it’s an uncontested divorce, then the procedure really depends upon your specific circumstances.  We would have you come into our office, meet with us, and learn about your goals in terms of what you are looking to achieve in the divorce, and then reach out to your spouse and see if we can reach some time of amicable resolution.Sometimes that’s achieved by way of letter-writing, or a settlement conference. There might be a need to disclose certain assets.  There might be a need to demand the production of certain items.  Once those items are exchanged and there’s a conversation regarding the specific issue, hopefully you would be able to achieve a favorable settlement outside of court without the need of going to a judge.

However, if the matter does become contested, then there’s a different rubric –  if a matter is contested and it is before a court.  In that type of proceeding for a divorce, what occurs initially is a preliminary conference.  At that preliminary conference, both parties are obligated to produce a statement of net worth regarding assets, regarding expenses, regarding liabilities.  It really is an important document for both spouses.

Also at the preliminary conference a road map is set up, in terms of what you can expect moving forward– what dates discovery is due, what dates depositions will be, and what you would be looking at in terms of the trial.  You can always settle your matter without the need for the judge to issue a decision.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

Filing for divorce is the actually the simplest thing you will do in your divorce. A divorce is usually commenced with the filing of something called a Summons with Notice. It is an abbreviated form of pleading that provides the adversary, the defendant spouse, with notice that you have commenced an action for divorce, and with certain other basic information, including what ancillary relief you are looking for in addition to the dissolution of your marriage.

There might be custody, there might be support, maintenance, equitable distribution of property also listed as relief that you are seeking. The filing of the summons will also provide your spouse with notice of automatic orders. These are orders that the court has imposed upon the filing of the summons that keep the parties from transferring and hiding assets, from dropping insurance during the pendency of the case.

It’s important that before you file for divorce, you consider the impact of the automatic orders on your own financial situation. Once you have been served with a summons (if your spouse has filed the case), you are subject to those orders as well.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

Preparing for divorce is just as important as anything else you do, whether it is settling or litigating the divorce. Good preparation generally assures a higher level of success in resolution of the issues of your case.

Examples of good preparation are making sure that you have gathered all documents, and recordings of your spouse. If your spouse is saying terrible things about you in front of your children, if your spouse is threatening you in some way, then getting a good audible recording is great preparation for trial. In fact trials are often avoided by having such good evidence because the other side will realize the futility of opposing your position.

Other kinds of preparation that are important include getting a good financial statement prepared. Something we call a “Statement of Net Worth” in divorce is important to prepare and prepare well, early in the case. That way, we can plan what financial objectives we should have for you and how best to achieve them.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

Divorce Mediation is a process by which a professional, usually an attorney, sits with a divorcing couple and helps them resolve the issues that are required to be resolved for their divorce to be submitted to the court for the court to issue the Judgment of Divorce.

It’s a lot like an uncontested divorce.  The difference is that in a Divorce Mediation, there’s one professional who will field the questions that are asked by the husband and wife, husband and husband, what-have-you, and then will provide proposed answers to those questions so that the parties are steered towards providing a resolution of each of the issues.

For example: if there is a question regarding who will have custody, the divorce mediator will propose joint custody or shared custody or a sole custody option, the parties will choose, they’ll decide on what the parenting time is going to be, an agreement is prepared from that general outline and the parties sign the agreement, ultimately signing papers to get a divorce.

Divorce Mediation is not a negotiation. The parties are not given legal advice. They are given some basic ideas and they choose from basic options. Divorce Mediation works well for people who have simple situations and want simple outcomes.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

There are seven grounds for divorce in New York state, and only two of them are likely to affect your case anyway.  First that would possibly affect your divorce is cruel and inhuman treatment.  If your spouse has treated you so cruelly and inhumanly as to render it not just unsafe or improper for you to cohabit as the statute is worded but has virtually attempted murder to try to kill you, then that could affect the outcome of your divorce.  Because in such an egregious fault situation, the courts have been known to skew equitable distribution in favor of the victim.  So if you’re one of those unlucky persons who not only suffered at domestic violence but nearly died from the effort of your soon-to-be ex-spouse, then you could expect the outcome of your divorce to be affected by a ground for divorce.

The other ground that would affect your divorce is the ground that everybody uses these days since we’ve changed the grounds for divorce six years, and that is the irretrievable breakdown of the parties’ relationship for more than six months, the so-called no fault divorce in New York.  Everybody uses no fault because to use any of the other grounds, other than the one I just mentioned in an egregious fault situation, is really to court disaster with the judges.

Judges really do not want to entertain a he-said-she-said about who did what to whom to cause the breakdown of the marriage.  It is in view of most judges a waste of judicial resources, a waste of time and money.  They assume that you’re in their courtroom because you need a divorce, and they want to get on to the more substantive issues of custody, maintenance, child support, dividing assets, what have you.  Many of them have 300, 400 cases on their docket in the metropolitan area, and they just don’t have time.  And to bring grounds as an important issue into really to be tone deaf to what the court is hoping the case will look like and it can bias the judge against your case actually.

​For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

So to avoid people from coming in from other jurisdictions like Florida and California to come to New York to take advantage of some of our equitable distribution laws or maintenance awards or child support laws, the court requires that the parties meet a residency requirement.  There are many ways to do that, one being that either party has lived in New York for a period of two years or more.  That can be satisfied by the husband or the wife, even if the other party hasn’t been in New York for a decade.

The second being that the parties were married in New York and then either party lived in New York for at least a year prior to commencement of the action.  And the third one is that the couple lived in New York as a married couple and either party lived in New York for at least a year prior to the commencement of the action.

If the parties meet any of those three, then the court would have at least subject matter jurisdiction to hear the divorce.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

Collaborative divorce is a divorce in which both parties, the husband and the wife, sign on to retainer agreements with their respective attorneys in which the attorneys agree that they will not take the case to court.  They agree to keep the case out of court to try to settle out of court and use the best efforts to do whatever they can to settle it without going to court.

It’s a good thing in the sense that it as long as both parties are intent on keeping their attorneys, it will tend to dissuade people from going to court.  But it’s a bad thing because negotiation can be stymied by the inability to exercise the leverage, which most people enjoy in negotiating an uncontested divorce, which is obviously if we can’t get what we’re looking for here at the table, we’ll have to go to court to get it.  And that, I’m going to say, hardball leverage is missing in a collaborative divorce.

It is actually a very important thing, and it doesn’t have to be a nasty thing, but the other side should know that if they’re being unreasonable and not recognizing the state of the law, the state of the facts that would in a court case give the party taking a position the upper hand and they’re not recognizing that leverage, then it really does put the person who has a natural advantage on a particular issue at a disadvantage.

If I’m representing the wife and she’s been the primary caretaker the entire time in a five or ten-year marriage, have two children or what have you, and the husband takes the position of I’m not going to give you custody.  I want shared custody.  I don’t really care what you say.  Well, if I’m representing that wife, well, I’m going to want to take that case to court because I’ll know, and they’ll know, that I can win that case in court, and I will never even have to go to court, but the fact is that their knowledge that I can take it court will usually get them to be more reasonable.

But in a collaborative divorce, that piece of the pie is missing because they know I can’t take them to court.  Of course, the client could, but the client could only do that by firing me because they’ve hired me as a collaborative attorney where I’ve agreed to not go to court.  So to exercise that leverage means stopping a relationship with an attorney who you may have grown to trust and you have invested quite a bit in.  So I personally do not prefer a collaborate divorce arrangement.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

You can use anything that’s admissible evidence in a divorce case.  The question is what’s admissible and what’s the best kind of evidence to use in a divorce case.  Well, let’s start with what’s best.  The best evidence in any kind of divorce case is an admission by the other side, whether it’s a tax return signed by the spouse that says the income is X number of dollars.  Well, that’s an admission – by signing the joint return – that the income actually is that number.  Or it’s a statement made on an audio recording that yes, I took the children to Tijuana or whatever, despite what you said.  Whatever it might be.

That type of admission is really very, very effective because not only does it make the case that you’re trying to make in court.  But it can often show the other side to be lying; to be less than credible.  And you can get a double whammy, if you will, from that type of evidence.

It comes into evidence because an admission by a party, the other party, is one of the known exceptions to the hearsay rule.  Now obviously, you’re trying to get something in for the truth of the content of that statement.  And if the person is saying it in that audio recording, or in that text message or in that email, well then that’s something that is hearsay.  But because they said it as a party, it’s an exception to the rule and it comes right into evidence.

The only thing you have to worry about is authenticity.  That’s the other thing the courts are worried about.  Is it really what you say it is? Well if it’s a printed email, then you can show an email train for and you can demonstrate how the emails were actually said and when they were stated, etcetera, typically courts will allow that into evidence.

If it’s a recording in which you establish that you – it was true and accurate recording of the thing you actually heard and you played it back when you first recorded it, and it was in fact the exact thing that you just heard, and you go through that foundation testimony, well then you can get it into evidence as well.

There are some really great evidentiary tricks that are employed in divorce cases to have a great impact. 

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

A good example of separate property is somebody having a bank account before they get married.  Let’s say a $50,000.00 account. Parties get married.  They buy a house.  Let’s say the wife has the $50,000.00 account.  She puts that money that was in her sole account and she comes to the closing and she writes a $50,000.00 check to purchase that house.  Ten years later the parties are getting divorced and dividing that house up.

Assuming that she still has the proof that she put that $50,000 into the purchase of the house, well, that $50,000 will come right off the top as her separate property and the balance of the net proceeds will then be split between the parties.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you

Separate property consists of assets you get to keep in a divorce without sharing it with your spouse.  Everyone knows that in divorce you have to divide your stuff up.  Well, not all of your stuff.  The separate property that you claim and that you can prove is yours, you get to keep without sharing-  comes right off the top, comes right back in your pocket so to speak.

There are four types of separate property.  Separate property consists of property you own before the marriage.  It’s property that you acquired by a will or other devise.  It’s property you acquired by third party gift, and it’s property that you acquired by personal injury award or disability award.  These types of property, assuming they haven’t been spent or dissipated or co-mingled and they’re still intact in some way, when it comes time to divide the assets in the divorce will remain yours right off the top.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

You should ask a divorce lawyer the questions that are most pressing to you.  If the most important thing for you is getting custody of your child, ask about, well, what are my chances of getting custody.  The most important thing for you is – say you have a childless marriage – is preserving any assets you had before the marriage, then ask the attorney about that right up front.  Get right to what’s most important to you.  And from that, you’ll be able to gauge what skill level the attorney has because the attorney will ask you questions about that thing which will reflect that attorney’s knowledge of that area of law.  You’ll find that the questions will give you confidence in what the attorney can do for you by virtue of how the questions are posed and how the strategy of the attorney is able to develop from those answers you give.

It’s better to ask questions from the attorney about what they can do for you than ask questions about their rate of success on something or other because you’re really just inviting an attorney bragging rather than an attorney answering questions that you need answered in an intelligent way.  And by the way, it’s not just any attorney that can do this.  An attorney that is – I can’t say specialized, but an attorney who’s been emphasizing in matrimonial law or family law for many years and is very experienced in that particular area that you’re concerned with will give a much more intelligent interview with you than somebody who’s a general practitioner.

​For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.

One of the most common questions in a divorce is what happens to the marital residence.  The most common answer is that the house gets listed for sale immediately upon the execution of a stipulation of settlement, and at which time the house gets sold and the parties share the proceeds equally.

Another option is one party may buy out the other party’s interest in the residence.  And another common answer is if there are assets equal to another party’s interest, one party may keep an asset and the other party may keep the marital residence.

Lastly, if there are children in a case and the children are 13 or 14 years of age, it’s possible for the custodial parent who’s going to have custody of the children to stay in the house until the youngest child graduates high school.  However, that party must be able to show that with their own income, child support and maintenance, they would be able to pay the carrying charges, including the mortgage and taxes, during that period of time.  After that period of time is over, the house would then be listed for sale and the proceeds would be split equally.

For a free consultation regarding a divorce or family law issue in Suffolk or Nassau County, please contact us or call (631) 337-1977.  We look forward to speaking with you.