About five years ago–after being burned for the umpteenth time by entering a temporary consent order binding my client to a temporary support without first obtaining a financial declaration from the opposing party, only to subsequently learn that the other party’s income and expenses would not have justified such generous support–I vowed never again to […]
Archive for the ‘Of Interest to Family Court Litigants’ Category
Outline of “Preparing for a Family Court Trial”
In August 2017, I lectured at the Charleston School of Law on “Preparing for a Family Court Trial.” The lecture outline has never been published. Some might consider it a handy trial preparation cheat sheet. Those who do are welcome to download it.
Court of appeals reverses grant of grandparent visitation based upon narrow interpretation of “denying visitation”
The January 4, 2019 Court of Appeals opinion in Brown v. Key represents the first published opinion addressing the 2014 revision to South Carolina’s grandparent visitation statute, S.C. Code § 63-3-530(A)(33). Four months after affirming an award of grandparent visitation under the prior, more restrictive statute, Brown reversed the family court’s award of grandparent visitation. […]
Don’t let your kids become pinball wizards
I have no desire to mine the legislative history to determine when and why some South Carolina legislator decided he needed to save our state’s youth from the evils of pinball. Whatever fears led to the enactment of S.C. Code § 63-19-2430–a model of simplicity which states, “It is unlawful for a minor under the […]
Court of Appeals addresses valuation of a closely held business
The November 28, 2018 Court of Appeals opinion in Clark v. Clark is one more data point in the confusion that is South Carolina transmutation litigation. Clark further addresses how one values the minority shares of a closely held business. The primary issue on appeal involved identifying the marital portion and valuing PCI, a business […]
There is no formula to predict South Carolina alimony obligations
There’s a chart circulating amongst South Carolina family law attorneys that lists most of the published alimony opinions and has columns for the amount of alimony ordered, length of marriage, the spouses’ respective incomes and expenses, grounds for divorce, and other factors described in the alimony statute. My understanding is that family law attorneys look […]
Better behaving clients
Earlier this week I received what may be one of the bigger complements of my career. A fellow member of the local family court bar was discussing two recent cases we’d had against each other. In both of these cases my clients had been represented by other attorneys prior to retaining me and in one […]
The pessimistic defendant’s attorney
I suspect I lose a lot of business by projecting a pessimistic outlook when first meeting with Defendants in family law cases. While many litigants prefer the primacy of being the Plaintiff, and thereby going first, I’ve never seen a clear advantage in trial to representing the Plaintiff or the Defendant. However experience teaches that […]