Graham.Law Blog

Child Abuse Precludes Joint Decision-Making Child abuse and neglect has long been an important factor for the domestic relations judge in determining how to allocate parental rights and responsibilities. And under the “best interests of the child” statute, a parent who committed child abuse or neglect is precluded from joint…

U.S. Supreme Court & Family Law Family law is a state issue, by and large, and international child custody disputes are rare. While there are a few federal statutes which apply to family law, they generally impose obligations on the states, and in turn the states will implement the directives…

First Comes Property, Then Comes Alimony Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the context of a Colorado divorce case, the question might be rephrased as “which comes first, property or alimony?” And the answer, per statute, is spousal maintenance (aka “alimony”). Under Colorado’s maintenance statute, one of…

Court Required To Allocate Debts As Part Of Marital Estate Upon dissolution, the family law judge must “equitably” allocate the marital estate, which includes not just assets but also the debts acquired during the marriage. But that does not mean the court has to accept what one party claims at…

Deviation From Child Support Guidelines Cannot Be Permanent With limited exceptions, courts are required to apply Colorado’s Child Support Guidelines when determining an appropriate amount of child support. And that means when parents sign a child support agreement, they too must generally adhere to the guidelines. And while parents may agree to…

Marital Property Includes Separate Property Increase in Value In a Colorado dissolution of marriage, an asset owned by a spouse prior to marriage remains the property of that spouse (per (2)). But that does not increase a separate property increase in value. Only the principal amount brought into the marriage…

Change of Custody & Retroactive Child Support Normally, the law does not allow retroactive child support – a support modification is only prospective – i.e. it applies to payments due after the motion was modified, rather than to past support. (1)(a) provides: “except as otherwise provided in subsection (5) of…

In 2014, Colorado’s maintenance statute was modified to provide trial courts with maintenance guidelines that set forth both an amount and duration of alimony based upon the parties’ incomes and duration of the marriage. Colorado has long had child support guidelines which create a presumptive amount of child support a court must…

Angelina Jolie Can’t Move Children In a reminder that the rich & famous are often no different from the rest of us when it comes to compliance with the laws, Angelina Jolie was recently in the news complaining that she was being blocked from moving out of the country by…

Man Requests Trial by Combat in Child Custody Case Our blog does not typically report on an out-of-state case, but then again, this is an unusual case, with one party requesting a highly unusual form of dispute resolution. The Des Moines Register reports that 40 year-old David Ostrom, who believed he had…