Families can be tricky things. Although you hope that you’ll never need a lawyer’s help with your marriage or your family, the truth is, many families across America do. With over 850,000 divorces and almost 5 million women experiencing physical violence from an intimate partner every year, lawyers step in to help with family law cases quite a bit. Divorce, as everyone knows, can be a very messy procedure, especially when there are children and child custody rights in the mix. Domestic violence is also made especially difficult with children in the home and can be psychologically harmful for the partner being abused to undergo trials and more. For these reasons and more, it’s often suggested that individual seek out family law attorneys for advice and to get the rights they deserve.
Divorce
The United States faces a depressing statistic: estimates show that between 40 and 50% of all first marriages and 60% of second marriages will wind up ending with a divorce. How long you’ve been married is also no guarantee; the average marriage length is about nine years. Age, however, is usually a factor; couples that marry young (below 20 years of age) have the largest divorce rate — almost 1.5 times more likely to get divorced as a couple who got married between 20-24 years of age. Naturally, not all of these divorces end amicably, which is where divorce lawyers come in, to try and mediate, acquire the property or money that their client sees is fair, and to guide their clients through the maze of the courtroom.
If there are kids indirectly involved in the divorce proceedings, child custody lawyers may also be called into action. Rarely do parents agree over who should have custody of the children. Indeed, in 2013, the U.S. Census Bureau released a report showing that among the 14.4 million parents who held custody, almost half had some legal or informal child support agreement with their ex-spouse.
Additionally, over 35% of the child support money owed in a year is never made — so parents who receive child support get about $311 every month, should instead see about $500. Good child custody attorneys will try and nail down specific wording to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Domestic Violence
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that every nine seconds, a woman in the United States is either assaulted or beaten. And although the public fear is violence at the hands of a stranger, too often, the violence comes from a figure in their own home. In 2011, it was reported that over 1,500 women were killed by a man they knew; an intimate partner was the perpetrator for over 60% of these cases and in over 25% of those instances, it was sparked by an argument.
Victims of domestic abuse may need a family law attorney to help them fight a custody battle, regain possessions or assets their partner has wrongly taken from them, and assisting them in understanding their legal rights as a survivor of domestic abuse.
If you are suffering from domestic abuse or considering a divorce, try and reach out to a lawyer to help deal with your situation.