Caroline County Family Lawyer

While divorces may be the most common thing for family law attorneys to tackle, they are only one of the ways they can help you. A Caroline County family lawyer can also help you with custody issues, child support, spousal support, and property distribution. In addition, a family lawyer can help you bring about positive changes, such as adding to your family through adoption.

Dividing assets is a massive part of any divorce, these assets often represent a lifetime of work and savings. The only thing more important is child custody, anything that deals with your children has a value that cannot be put into numbers. Instead of trying to handle these matters on your own, getting help from an attorney is vital. Even parties who agree on property distribution can still need a lawyer’s opinion on other issues, custody, prenuptial agreements, visitation, and more. That help can be vital to protecting your short-term and long-term consequences.

Using a Caroline County Family Lawyer for a Divorce

Most divorce attorneys can also handle other issues, such as custody or child support disputes between parties who were never married, ongoing property negotiations between divorcing parties, issues related to domestic violence, and more.

Whether a lawyer considers themselves a family law attorney or a divorce attorney, they need to be aware of the complex social structures that exist in many families since those dynamics inevitably impact legal matters. There has been a push in recent times to have partners or co-parents try to amicably resolve their issues in mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution.

While mediation is a fantastic tool for people in healthy relationships with an equal power dynamic, it can be detrimental for partners where there has been any type of abuse, including emotional or financial abuse. Using mediation or negotiation as a way to continue controlling a partner can happen. One of a Caroline County family attorney’s jobs is to understand the relationship and use that information to guide proceedings to protect their client’s best interests.

Family Law Elements of a Divorce

On the surface, a divorce is just the end of a marriage. That is relatively easy to accomplish when a couple has no assets and no children in common. In that case, each party walks away with what they brought into the marriage and can have an agreed divorce with minimal hassle or stress. Young people who married and then realized they made the wrong choice may find themselves in that position.

For people with more at stake, a divorce lawyer needs to be a keen negotiator and an experienced litigator. The goal is to peacefully resolve issues without having to fight them out in court, a concept known as conscious uncoupling. That is not always possible. Many partners would rather see all their assets wasted than see their partner walk away with anything.

A family lawyer in Caroline County needs to be able to negotiate:

• Alimony
• Asset division
• Debt division
• Alimony
• Child custody
• Child support
• Terminating parental rights
• Non-parent custody matters
• Visitation

If negotiations fail, they need to be excellent in mediation and fierce in litigation.

Domestic Violence and Family Law

The court tends to treat both spouses equally in divorces. While Virginia requires a party to plead grounds for divorce, it does not require a finding of fault. Issues like domestic violence do not have to be proven to get a no-fault divorce but will be necessary to prove for a fault based divorce. A Caroline County family attorney can advocate for a fair and equitable property distribution rather than an equal distribution.

Consult a Caroline County Family Lawyer

Going through a divorce is one of the most stressful events a person can face. Even when you want a divorce and know it is the right decision, it still means the end of a marriage. It can be easy to get highly emotional and let those emotions guide your decisions, which can be devastating in terms of long-term impact. A Price Benowitz attorney can help you focus on getting what you want, need, and deserve instead of letting emotions rule your decisions. Schedule a consultation to learn more.