DIVORCE There are two major requirements to get divorced in Florida; 1) one of the parties must have been a resident of Florida for at least 6 months, and, 2) the marriage must be irretrievably (no way it can be repaired) broken. If the couple has children, one or both of them can ask the Court to order marriage counseling. Getting the divorce is really the easy part. The question is what happens to all the property, debts, children, marital home, alimony, etc... For some divorces, one spouse has left the other one in a lurch, and that spouse may seek temporary relief from the Court. Often, parents of children play tug of war, or refuse to allow contact, or refuse to pay child support, or any other number of problems. An Attorney can help sift through all of these issues and suggest alternatives. In Florida marital assets, which are assets acquired during a marriage, are divided equitably. The Court starts with the presumption, that an equal 50/50 division is equitable. Either party may convince the Court that 50/50 is not equitable, such as in a case where one spouse did an enormous amount of work on the marital home. Debts are handled in a similar matter. But often, Attorney's who are not very familiar with family law, or bankruptcy, may draft divorce documents that do not fully protect each spouse. For example, in a case in which the Husband is ordered to pay a certain debt, but no remedy is provided in case the Husband defaults on the debt. Or if the Wife is given exclusive use and possession of the marital home, but no provision is made for her to be required to refinance it in her sole name. These are just two small examples of problems encountered by some people. In cases involving children, one person is usually designated as the "majority parent". This is because children have the right to stability and continuity, and bouncing back and forth from Mother and Father is not always conducive to stability and continuity, and often allows the child(ren) too little structure. While the aim of the Court in most cases is to ensure frequent and liberal time-sharing by both parents, it is not common for the Courts to order equal time-sharing. This practice is not usually practical, and leads to problems later on. On the other hand, it is not-uncommon to see equal time-sharing when both parents get along, and the child(ren) are either very young, or reaching majority. One question asked of me very often is whether a child is able to decide where he or she wants to live. Because most children want to be with the "free and easy" parent, for obvious reasons, the child's preference is usually not considered. However, if a child is sufficiently mature he or she may be able to have some input, as this is one of the time-sharing factors. Child support is determined based on the parties income. For the most part, except for medical expenses, medical insurance, and daycare, child support is not based on a parties' living expenses or debt. Alimony however, is based on one spouse's need compared to the other spouses ability to pay. There are different types of alimony, and the factors are contained in the statute (here). There are other issues in divorce, such as dependency tax exemptions, medical insurance, attorney's fees, life insurance, etc... These are determined on a case by case basis. UNCONTESTED DIVORCE An uncontested divorce means that the couple has already decided and agreed upon all issues arising out of the marriage. Because the Attorney knows exactly how much time is spent on these types of cases they are less expensive than contested divorces. Contested divorces are billed based on an hourly rate. Our firm charges $250.00 per hour, with a minimum 10 hour non-refundable retainer, plus costs.