Graham.Law Blog

It’s been a long time coming – Child & Family Investigators have been governed by Chief Justice Directive 04-08 for the past 17 years, but the Colorado Supreme Court has been silent on regulating those appointed to serve as a Parental Responsibility Evaluator (PREs). Until now. And it took a…

Family law attorneys in Colorado don’t often have cases where there is an issue as to whether a marriage was irretrievably broken. We’ve blogged about the irretrievable breakdown element before, and in my career, I’ve seen probably a dozen times where one spouse tries to dispute the marriage was broken….

It seems like the trends are most assuredly against unvaccinated citizens in our courts. Employer-related Covid-19 vaccine mandates are increasingly being upheld by the courts, and thus far, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to intervene. History of Pro-Covid-19 Vaccine Decisions Unsurprisingly, the family law bench has similarly been hostile…

Covid-19 has certainly resulted in major changes to our society – not just over a half million deaths, but with social distancing, companies, schools and even courts doing business remotely, and by creating divisions over what measures may be appropriate. And now, you can add a potential problem for an…

In Thomas, the Court of Appeals held that when parents with joint decision-making cannot agree on a decision (in this case, school choice, but the holding would be applicable to any major decision), the family law court may make the decision. Thomas also stands as yet another example of the…

It’s something that most family law attorneys, and, sadly, many divorced parents have seen: in the months before school starts, the parents do not agree on the school choice for the child. And when one parent refuses to sign the school registration documents, there’s a stalemate. Not only is there…

OK, it was fun while it lasted. It was just two months ago that the El Paso & Teller County courthouses fully reopened after more than a year of Covid-related closures and restrictions. Now, with the Delta Variant raging, and Covid-19 cases and deaths reaching near-peak levels, it’s clear that…

When a judge awards maintenance as part of a final orders in a dissolution of marriage case, the maintenance is subject to modification “upon a showing of changed circumstances so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unfair” (1)(a). However, when the spouses reach an agreement for maintenance, they…

We have written about cases where Colorado’s appellate courts have reversed alimony awards from trial courts which simply applied the maintenance guidelines without evidence or specific findings on the need for maintenance. Now, the Colorado Court of Appeals has held, in a case of first impression, that courts are permitted…

On June 7, 2021, Governor Polis signed into law House Bill 21-1220, which contains the 2021 changes to the Colorado Child Support statute, as recommended by the Colorado Child Support Commission. The child support changes, which are the first since the 2019 changes to reflect the change in maintenance taxation,…