Some of the most contentious family court litigation I have handled involved modification of prior family court agreements in which the agreements were ambiguous to my clients’ detriment. Few things are more frustrating to a client than having his or her expectations thwarted because the agreement’s language does not comport with the client’s expectations. There [...]
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What are the justifications for long-term supervised visitation?
Almost two decades of family law practice has made me cautious regarding supervised visitation. The number of parents who believe their co-parents’ visitation needs to be supervised is substantially greater than the percentage of parents whose visitation actually needs to be supervised. Supervised visitation adds elements of tension and drama to what should be a [...]
Court of Appeals holds fault in the breakup of an engagement does not determine ownership of the engagement ring
A question family law attorneys are sometimes called upon to answer is if and when a broken engagement requires the return of an engagement ring. This is not technically a family law question, as the parties were never married and therefore their dispute doesn’t come within the purview of family court. Further the answer was [...]
Way decision reverses lump sum equitable distribution award
The May 9, 2012 Court of Appeals opinion in Way v. Way reversed the family court’s $20,000 lump sum equitable distribution award to Wife. The Ways had few assets but a whole lot ‘o debt. The marital home had two mortgages and was upside down. For reasons that are not clear from this opinion, the [...]
South Carolina Supreme Court promulgates rules for rules to show cause in family court
On April 30, 2012, the South Carolina Supreme Court finally created the long-awaited, oft-deferred family court rules for the handling of rules to show cause. Those rules are now set forth in South Carolina Family Court Rule 14. This new rule establishes formal procedures regarding rules to show cause. Most of these changes merely codify [...]
Mismatched incentives in family court ordered marital home sales
Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I would not claim South Carolina Family Court Judges are insane but few of them were economics majors as undergraduates. Econ-major lawyers tend to go into areas of practice other than family law. However an economics background is [...]
A second whack at the piñata
I just finished a trial in which opposing counsel employed a counterstrategy I had never before encountered to a strategy she had suspected I would employ because I had blogged about it: Making the defendant testify in the plaintiff’s case-in-chief. As that blog suggests, I represented the Plaintiff and called the Defendant as my first [...]