Too often this means “breakup of family” law. We believe that nothing in life is more important than your family, and we hope you think long and hard before ending your marriage. But if you have made that decision, our goal is to get you through the process as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Family law includes a lot of things. Most people think primarily of divorce and child custody, but we define it more broadly to include adoption, dependency (abuse and neglect), paternity, juvenile delinquency, and many other things.
Most lawyers don’t like doing family law because it is emotional and it never seems to end if children are involved. The primary reason we do it is for the children. Kids suffer a lot when their parents split, and more often than not we will see one parent or the other try to use the kids to gain leverage on the other. Often false claims of child abuse or neglect are made in order to obtain child custody or to just hurt the other party. Sometimes, a parent seeks more custody just to get more child support.
We try to impress upon our divorce clients who have minor children that they should always act in the best interests of the children. Your spouse does not become a bad parent just because you learn of an affair he or she is having. You have to be able to separate the spouse part from the parent part. Children need both parents, and even if you split from your spouse, you will continue to see each other for many years at graduations, weddings, etc. We counsel our clients to act with maturity and good judgment when going through this very emotional process, and we will not tolerate a client who will not do so.
On the other hand, if your spouse is making false allegations about you or otherwise trying to unfairly gain an advantage, we are attorneys you will want on your side. And obviously, if your spouse has legitimately abused your children, we will use all available legal means to protect them from the abuser.
If you need advice about a family law matter, please contact us for a free consultation .
