Peoria Family Law Blog

We have all heard that divorce can be very expensive, but it doesn't always have to be that way. In fact, there are many money-saving techniques that can help cut costs during the divorce process, as a recent article from Fox Business explained. First, the article said that it is important to establish a divorce budget and stick to it. This will help prevent costs from getting out of hand when your emotions are running on high.

Next, the article said that it is most cost-effective to avoid going to court whenever possible. The litigation process, although necessary in some cases, is what often drives up the cost of getting a divorce, so other options should be considered first. One of these options is mediation, which can assist the parties in reaching a mutual agreement through a facilitated negotiation process.

While many Illinois residents are familiar with the phrase 'separation of church and state,' a case out of Minnesota this month has some people wondering whether a judge's religious views can really have a significant impact on the outcome of a child custody case.

The concerns surrounding the 2011 child custody case began when the mother explained to the court that she wanted to distance her kids from the Baptist beliefs of her husband. According to her husband's beliefs, wives should be submissive to their husbands. When the mother struggled to cite the exact passage, one of the judges allegedly said that she knew which passage the woman was referring to and recalled having the same disapproval at her own wedding.

Along with many other topics, immigration reform has become one of the top things that President Obama has decided to handle before the end of his second term. But while these new reforms will change how immigrants gain access to the United States, they may also have a major impact on certain aspects of family law as well.

For decades now, immigrant families here in Illinois and across the country have been torn apart by instances of deportation and vicious child custody battles all because one or both parents are not considered to be legal citizens. Often times, tough legal situations arise not because of what type of parent the immigrant is, but because of the negative stigma associated with undocumented immigrants.

In Illinois, when an adult is found by a court to be incompetent to manage his or her own affairs, a legal guardian is appointed to do so. The person who has been declared incompetent is referred to as a "ward," and the guardian's legal duty is to act in the ward's best interest. So what should happen when a guardian determines it would be in the ward's best interest to get a divorce? Would a guardian have the right to file for divorce on behalf of the ward?

The question was first addressed by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1986, in a case called "In re Marriage of Drews." In that case, the court decided that the dissolution of marriage was too personal a decision for a guardian to make. For one thing, at that time, Illinois divorce law required a finding of fault, which seemed unjust in such cases. Second, how could a guardian know whether the ward would want the divorce if he or she was unable to decide?

The Drews decision turned out to be problematic, however, since a competent spouse does have the right to divorce an incompetent one. If a guardian can't file for divorce on a ward's behalf even when it is clearly in his or her best interest, the result would be to "grant the competent spouse 'absolute, final control over the marriage,'" the court said, citing Diane Snow Mills in an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.