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15 posts tagged Family Law, newest first.
Alimony is court-ordered support one spouse pays the other after divorce. Learn the types, the factors courts weigh, how long it lasts, and the post-2019 federal tax rule.
The LawSensai Family Law Center organizes divorce, custody, and support matters from intake to attorney handoff. Tour the vault, async mediation, the settlement composer, and the survivor-safe design.
The LawSensai Settlement Composer drafts the family law settlement agreement from the mediation output and the calculator anchors. Every draft runs through a guardrail scan before finalize. This post explains the drafting pipeline and the scan.
Protective orders move fast in domestic violence cases. This guide walks through the ex parte temporary order, what happens at the full hearing, and the specific protections a judge can write into the final order.
The LawSensai Child Support Calculator runs the actual state model your court will use. Most states run Income Shares. A few run Percentage of Income, Melson, Obligor-Only, or Tax-Adjusted. This post explains the models and how to read the output.
Family Law mediation on LawSensai runs async with HMAC magic-link invites, calculator anchors that tether proposals to real math, and impasse detection that flags when the parties are stuck. This post explains how the async track works and where the calculators come in.
An adult name change runs through a civil court petition, sometimes a publication step, and a long list of downstream record updates. Doing the steps in the right order saves weeks and prevents mismatched identification across federal and state agencies.
A prenuptial agreement sets the rules for property and support before marriage, but only if it survives judicial review. Courts look hard at disclosure, voluntariness, and unconscionability. Understanding the knock-out grounds keeps the contract intact.
Child support is a formula, not a negotiation. This post walks through the state application, how the calculator turns income into a monthly number, and what counts as a change in circumstances for modification.
Custody is two decisions, not one. Courts split legal authority from physical time and weigh both against a multi-factor best interests test. This post walks through what the labels mean and what judges actually consider.
Restraining orders and protective orders run through state civil and criminal courts on similar but distinct tracks. This post covers eligibility, the emergency order, the full hearing, the firearm restriction, and what enforcement looks like.
Divorce filing is a state court process with shared rhythms across all fifty states. This post walks through grounds, residency, the petition, financial disclosure, and the typical timeline so you can plan the first move.
Live mediation is the standard format for resolving custody and support disputes, but it does not fit every family. The Family Law Center supports async mediation through HMAC-signed magic links, calculator-anchored proposals, and impasse detection, with safety-mode protections for survivors. Here is how the format works.
A divorce attorney bills the first consult by the hour, usually between $300 and $500 for 60 minutes. Showing up with the wrong documents (or no documents) burns most of that hour on questions a tax return and a pay stub would have answered in 30 seconds. Four categories cover what almost every attorney needs to give you real advice: identity and marriage, income, assets and debts, and household and children. The same documents are what your state will require for mandatory financial disclosure later, so collecting them once saves money twice.
Temporary orders set the rules a separated family lives under while the divorce or custody case is pending: who has the kids on which nights, who pays what bill, who stays in the house, and who is barred from emptying the joint account. Most are issued within the first 30 to 60 days of filing. They are called temporary, but they usually become the de facto status quo by the time the case ends, so what gets ordered at this hearing matters more than its name suggests.