General Family Law

9. Communicate with your attorney by e-mail, but don't do it every hour or with every thought. Try to cover several issues or questions at once. Do not abuse email.

8. Call your attorney, but do not do it every day. Save up your questions and ideas.

9. Before taking any legal action, communicate with your spouse.

8. See if the marriage can be saved through counseling.

7. Try to resolve as many issues as possible, first of all through mediation, or using the collaborative process, which is where you each have independent attorneys, but you do not file until everything is settled. There is an article on collaborative law elsewhere on this site that explains the collaborative process in more detail, but it is a win-win situation for everyone.

8. Stay out of court as much as possible because court appearances are costly, not only financially, but also from an emotional standpoint. Judges will not know you or your case unless you are in a situation where you are in court every week on motions or hearings, and often the judge will be getting a very negative impression of you.

7. Make sure that you and your attorney are well prepared before you go to court. Floundering around in court can create a bad impression, and is also costly.

Domestic violence is on the rise, especially with people losing their jobs, losing their incomes, and facing a drastic reduction in lifestyle as is happening too frequently in ‘09. The following are nine issues to consider with regard to domestic violence:

9. Domestic violence consists of physical abuse, and if there is physical abuse, call the police at once.

8. Domestic violence includes using economic abuse. This can include preventing someone from getting, keeping, or leaving a job, damaging someone’s credit rating, making a spouse ask for money, destroying checkbooks, credit cards, money or property, giving a spouse an allowance. Domestic violence can include using coercion or threats. Threats are statements which promise negative consequences for certain behaviors or actions; for example, I’ll kill you if you ever leave me.”

8. Communicate with your attorney by e-mail, but don't abuse it.

7. Of course you can communicate with your attorney by fax.

6. Communicate by snail-mail. Bear in mind that this is a good way to communicate if there are several issues to be raised, but it is also a slow way to do so.

Even though they are not divorce actions, and are not part of the family court, in certain situations there are legal remedies. I have had cases where people have co-mingled assets, have shared investments and have purchased real estate together. I have had other cases where there have been promises made but not kept. In these situations, there may be an action, based upon fraud or unjust enrichments, which are tort actions. They are based upon promises that are not kept or based upon situations where one person has invested a lot of money into real estate and the other person is saying, "forget it – you are entitled to little or nothing".

The laws in the State of Michigan do not recognize either common law marriage or commitment ceremonies as same sex couples are not allowed to legally marry in Michigan. The question arises as to what happens when either same sex couples or heterosexual couples, who have lived together and co-mingled property without being marriage, breakup. I have handled both types of situations in my practice.