Jacksonville, Florida Family Law and Military Divorce Lawyer
The Lasky Law Firm
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2950 Halcyon Lane, Suite 305 Jacksonville, Florida 32223 USA |
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(904) 425-1923
or (866) 603-4629
(904) 399-1642
www.laskylawfirm.com
Contact the Firm
Law Firm Overview
At the Lasky Law Firm in Jacksonville, our attorneys provide knowledgeable and supportive client service to individuals and families on a wide range of domestic relations issues. If you need help with divorce, child custody, paternity or grandparents' rights anywhere in northeast Florida, contact one of our attorneys today.
Whether or not involved in military service, family law clients are usually under a great deal of stress. We can help relieve your anxiety while guiding you toward an informed definition of your goals for yourself and your children. Then we present you with the different legal strategies for getting there. Sometimes your problem can be solved through negotiation, and in other situations it will be necessary to present your strongest case in court. Either way, we have the experience and skills necessary to give you the best possible chance of success.
We offer our clients a relaxed and welcoming office atmosphere. When you call or stop in, you will always be able to talk to your lawyer or someone who knows you and your case very well. We never add to the stress of your situation by leaving you wondering about the status or progress of your case.
Practice Areas
Additional Practice Areas: Military Divorce; Modification and Enforcement of Family Court Orders; Florida Relocation Issues; Grandparent and Relative Custody; Annulment; Complex Property Division; Parenting Classes and Divorce
Practice Areas Description
The Lasky Law Firm offers advice and legal representation on such family law issues as the following:- Divorce
At the Lasky Law Firm, we work closely with you so that you can develop a sense of what to expect during and following the divorce. We help you define your immediate concerns and objectives, and help you articulate your vision of what a successful long-range outcome might be for yourself, your children, and your extended family. At all times, we make sure that your goals are based on a realistic understanding of your rights and responsibilities under Florida law. Similarly, many of our clients find that their immediate concerns have relatively simple legal solutions.
While most issues that come up in a Florida divorce can be worked out by agreement of the parties, our experience with divorce litigation means that your interests can be protected and advanced in court whenever necessary, if the facts and the law can reasonably be argued in support of your position.
- Complex Property Division
Florida divorce lawyer Cindy Lasky can help you receive your fair share of the marital property, especially in complex marital estates involving family business assets, confusion as to the proper characterization of particular assets, or disputes as to the division of valuable retirement or pension benefits.
Most property division issues are settled through negotiation. Because most property settlements reflect the belief that the negotiated agreement gives the client a result at least as good as a judge would order through the application of our state's equitable distribution factors, Cindy Lasky's experience and attention to detail can give you a distinct advantage. Her ability to compare the terms of a proposed agreement to what you could expect from the judge can help protect your right to a fair share of the marital estate in such situations as the following:
* Family business assets, interests in professional practices and partnerships, or other closely held corporate property
* Division of pensions, retirement benefits, and executive compensation packages, including those involving stock options or deferred payments
* Vacation real estate, investment properties, or interests in real estate investment trusts
* Interests in property affected by the terms of prenuptial agreements or postnuptial agreements
* Disputes as to the accurate valuation of real estate or other property
* Appreciation during the marriage of property acquired by either spouse before marriage
* Non-military spouse's rights to veteran's benefits, military pensions, or other assets and privileges under the Former Spouses' Protection Act
* Property division problems complicated by a spouse's concealment or nondisclosure of assets, or by unusual financial behavior in the two years prior to divorce
- Military Divorce
With a husband who's a retired Navy officer, Cindy Lasky knows all about the range of benefits available to retired military personnel. The longer the service, the better the benefits. For the divorcing spouses of veterans, military pensions and retirement benefits are part of the marital estate and subject to division under Florida's equitable property division principles. The longer the marriage, the stronger the rights.
If you need advice about divorce as a veteran retired from long years of active service, the spouse of such a veteran, or an active duty member of the armed services, Jacksonville divorce lawyer Cindy Lasky can help you. Contact the Lasky Law Firm to benefit from her detailed understanding of the different ways that past or present military service can affect the rights of divorcing spouses.
- Alimony and Cohabitation
Under Florida law, a family court judge has broad discretion to award alimony or spousal support from one divorcing spouse to another on either a temporary ("rehabilitative alimony") basis or permanently. Under certain conditions, a divorced spouse paying alimony can seek an order for modification or termination of the obligation based on a substantial change of circumstances including:
* Death of the former spouse
* Remarriage of the former spouse
* Cohabitation of an unmarried former spouse
As with other issues that need to be resolved in divorce cases, alimony problems are usually worked out between the spouses with a view toward compromising what they might theoretically receive from a judge on a contested motion. The main factors are to find a balance between one spouse's need for support and the other spouse's ability to pay. Non-working spouses in long-term marriages who never developed significant professional or occupational skills are most likely to receive alimony; the longer the marriage lasted, the more likely it is that the award will be permanent. For younger spouses who have been out of the workforce while raising children, an alimony award will more likely be rehabilitative in nature — sufficient to support a period of career development or completing an education.
Florida law on the modification of alimony was significantly updated very recently, when the legislature amended the statute to allow a family law judge to consider cohabitation or de facto marriage as a grounds for modifying or terminating alimony. When a divorced Florida woman hosted a Vegas Wedding Weekend for her fiance and friends, her former husband sought to terminate his $60,000 annual alimony obligation by advising the judge of his ex's remarriage. It turned out that there was no license for the Nevada wedding, the "newlyweds" decided not to legally marry in order to keep the alimony payments coming, and the judge had no legal authority to relieve the former husband of his alimony burden. The legislature acted promptly to add cohabitation under mutually supportive circumstances as a legal ground for alimony modification.
- Florida Relocation Issues
If you are a custodial parent in Florida and you are considering a move of more than fifty miles from your current address, you may need to obtain legal advice regarding your move. In 2006, the Florida Legislature acted to clarify and refine the procedures regarding a parent’s plans for relocation. While it remains to be seen whether the new system helps to avoid and resolve the problems when a long distance move is in the works for a divorced parent, there is no question that the new parental relocation rules have drastically changed the way these questions are handled in Florida.
If you need advice about your rights and responsibilities concerning your own intention to move your child in common with a divorced parent, or if you have received formal notice of your ex-spouse's intention to move your child a distance of more than 50 miles, contact an experienced child custody lawyer at the Lasky Law Firm in Jacksonville. Because we concentrate our practice on family law, we stay current with all the legislative developments that can directly or indirectly affect your interests as a parent.
- Modification and Enforcement
Because needs and the ability to meet them can may change after a divorce, a former spouse can always ask the family court to increase or decrease the amount of alimony or child support, or change the terms of child visitation arrangements. Asking isn't always the same as getting, however. If you have questions about the likelihood that modification of a post-divorce obligation will be granted in your case, or if you need help enforcing the terms of your former spouse's commitments, contact an experienced family law attorney at the Lasky Law Firm in Jacksonville.
We can review the facts of your situation and see whether a change in your circumstances can justify a judge's decision to lower the amount of your child support obligations, or raise the amount of your alimony. We can also examine your child custody or visitation arrangements to see whether problems at your former spouse's residence might support an order that primary custody be switched to you. Modification will usually only be ordered on a clear showing of materially changed circumstances, and we know how to assemble and present the necessary evidence in the right case. Better yet, we can often obtain an agreement for modification that can save you the uncertainty and expense of a court hearing.
Special rules apply to child custody modification in military divorces where a parent is on active duty. If you or your former spouse will be returning from a deployment, we can show you how these rules can increase the amount of visitation and access for the military parent while on home leave.
Our lawyers also know how to avoid and resolve enforcement problems when one spouse or the other defaults on alimony or child support payments. Violations of child support orders are especially serious, and the court has a wide range of options for enforcing these obligations. Enforcement tools range from garnishment to action against a driver's license or professional license, and can even be punished by contempt of court. No matter which side of an enforcement proceeding you find yourself on, we can advise you and work toward a resolution of the problem, and represent your interests in court as necessary.
- Other Divorce and Marriage Issues
At the Lasky Law Firm in Jacksonville, our experience and concentration on divorce and family law issues allows us to offer dependable advice and skilled representation on problems that do not come up every day. We can tell you about the procedures involved in seeking alimony or child support during a period of separation or abandonment, without filing for dissolution of marriage. We can advise you about juvenile dependency proceedings and useful alternatives to guardianship or foster care.
Our lawyers can advise you and represent you in court on such matters as the following:
* Advice about legal marriage, de facto marriage, cohabitation, annulment, and informal or legal separation
* Reviewing antenuptial or postnuptial agreements to see whether they can be enforced in divorce proceedings on alimony or property division questions
* Advice about negotiating property settlements and spousal support issues to get the full benefit of tax attributes while minimizing the risk of problems with the IRS
* Child support, child custody and visitation issues concerning children with autism, physical disabilities or developmental disabilities such as mental retardation
* Providing for the support and care of adult dependent children in a divorce case
* Review or preparation of wills, trusts and other estate planning instruments in conjunction with divorce settlements and decrees
* Advice and representation in divorces involving active duty or retired military personnel
* Dissolution of marriage involving a spouse with mental illness or severe behavioral or substance abuse disorders
* High conflict child custody cases, in which one parent's problems with drug addiction, sexual behavior or family violence might present problems with unsupervised visitation or shared custody
* Domestic violence issues, including how to seek or respond to a domestic violence restraining order, and advice about the effect of a restraining order on child custody or visitation rights
* Juvenile dependency issues that could lead to out-of-home placement of your child or termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings
* The rights of grandparents and other relatives to visitation or custody as part of a marital dissolution
- Paternity and Fathers' Rights
At the Lasky Law Firm, our lawyers are often asked to help unmarried mothers and fathers with problems concerning child support, child custody, or visitation. If you need advice and representation about your right of access to your own child, or counsel about a paternity dispute or support obligation, contact us in Jacksonville.
Our attorneys can represent either parent in a case to determine the paternity of a child. In most cases, there is no real question as to the father's identity, but formal establishment of paternity will be necessary to determine how much child support the father must pay. If the alleged father denies paternity, we can help you protect your rights through DNA testing and other relevant evidence. When paternity is not contested, the amount of child support might well be subject to legitimate dispute. The same child support guidelines applied in Florida divorce cases are used to set the amount of payments in paternity cases.
Although a court determining paternity has the authority to resolve child custody and visitation issues as well, many unmarried fathers do not take advantage of their right to ask the court for a formal visitation schedule. In some cases, a father will later discover that the mother can use her control over his access to his child in irresponsible or hurtful ways. If you are a father who would like to stabilize and secure your right to see your children under a formal visitation schedule, together with enforcement rights in the event of the mother's interference, we can prepare and present your petition to the family court.
- Grandparent and Relative Custody
Under Florida law, relatives and grandparents' rights to visitation or child custody are conditioned upon certain circumstances, absent such unusual circumstances as problems at the child's primary residence or the inability of the parent to provide proper care. In those situations, we can advise you about the possibility of an order for temporary custody of the child from a family court judge in what's known as a Chapter 751 proceeding. The judges of family court are usually quick to recognize that a grandparent's home is often the best placement option for children in trouble at home. Temporary custody can be the ideal alternative to formal juvenile dependency proceedings, foster care placement, or termination of parental rights.
Guardianship on either a temporary or permanent basis is another option, but petitions to appoint a grandparent or other relative as a guardian of a dependent child are heard in probate court, not family court. Probate judges tend to have less experience with the realities of family problems and the best interests of children, so we usually recommend family court proceedings as an alternative to guardianship.
- Child Custody
At one time, mothers had an advantage in child custody decisions and only rarely prevailed. This is no longer the case. And in addition to the fact that both parents now stand on an equal footing in these issues, courts in Florida and across the nation have begun to recognize the custody and visitation rights of other family members, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, and paternal fathers.
In general, courts will make custody decisions based on the “Best Interest of the Child” standards. Factors that are considered before reaching these decisions include which parent is most likely to allow open and frequent access to the children by the non-custodial parent and other important family members; which parent is the better nurturer; the children's relationships with the respective parents; each parent's work hours; and the relative stability that each household could provide.
We understand the sensitive, emotionally charged nature of these issues and we work to help you through this process by being accessible and responsive to your needs and by actively communicating and keeping you informed as the case progresses. Our legal approach is aggressive and designed to protect both your rights and the future that you will share with your children.
- Child Support
Divorce settlements, in addition to resolving difficult issues such as the division of property and child custody, we also must consider financial support to the custodial parent or former spouse. In most cases, child support will be ordered by the court pursuant to Florida Statutes. Spousal support, on the other hand, may or may not be required at all and there is much more discretion in that type of award.
At the Lasky Law Firm, we help clients throughout the Jacksonville Metro area and northeast Florida and provide experienced, effective legal representation and guidance in both child support and alimony-related concerns. In each of these matters, we take a hands-on, aggressive legal approach with one primary goal in mind: Securing a sound financial future for you and your family.
- Parenting Classes and Divorce
If you are a parent seeking a dissolution of marriage in Florida, you will have to participate in one of the various parenting classes offered throughout the state. Though the formats vary from county to county, each circuit has some type of program to help assist and educate parents with the needs of their children as the family navigates through the divorce process.
Attorneys
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Ms. Cindy L. Lasky
Attorney Family Law, Litigation |
More Information on The Lasky Law Firm
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