More and more litigants today are agreeing to arbitrate matters outside of the public sphere of the courthouse and hire a private arbitrator to resolve their dispute in lieu of a judge in the court doing so. In the context of a business or contract dispute, the aggrieved parties might…
Frequently, clients come to me complaining that their spouse or partner is exposing their children to dating relationships or conversely ask what should be their response to a spouses objection. Generally I advise that one should follow a common sense approach, meaning one should look at the effect on the children…
On Tuesday, August 11, 2015, a New York court ordered the children of the television “Gossip Girl” actress, Kelly Rutherford, to be returned to their father, Daniel Giersch, who has been living with the children in Monaco since 2012. Rutherford and Giersch wed in 2007 and welcomed their first child, Hermes, the…
Parental disagreements as to a child’s upbringing are probably about as old as humankind. Nowhere are these conflicts more prevalent than in today’s modern society where children are bombarded with content from the internet, television, phones and computers. Parents often disagree on what content is appropriate and inappropriate for their child to see…
On January 12th 2015, the Appellate Division published its opinion in the case of Costa v. Costa. In Costa, the parties were married in 1994 and divorced in 2006. They had two children together, one being born in 1997 and the other in 2000. By way of settlement agreement entered into…
We all look forward to the holiday season. Traditions developed around holidays build a collective family memory that binds us together uniquely and permanently. We bring the traditions we learn in our childhoods into our marriages and incorporate them with our spouse’s traditions into a new hybrid tradition. We do…
In yet another recently published decision, in Madison v. Davis decided on June 18, 2014, the Honorable Lawrence R. Jones, J.S.C., sitting in the Family Division of Ocean County, tackled a novel issue related to the rights and obligations of divorced parents when their child(ren) attend pre-school. Throughout the decision, Judge…
On August 6, 2014, the Appellate Division published the decision in KAF v. DLM., in which the Court clarified the standard that family courts are to apply when considering applications by a third party seeking custody and/or visitation and claims that he or she is a “psychological parent” to a child who already…
On July 28, 2014, the New Jersey Appellate Division approved for publication the case of R.K. v. F.K. (Docket No. A-4165-11T4), which further clarified the issue of how courts in New Jersey are to determine applications to modify existing custody and parenting time arrangements. In August, 2007 the wife obtained a temporary…
In a November, 2013 decision published on March 10th of this year, in what appears to be the first decision of its kind not only in New Jersey but in the United States, a Superior Court judge in the matter of Plotnick v. Delucca held that an expectant mother is not required to notify…