Alcohol and Minors

OUI / Drunk Driving

Modification of Child Support

PREPARATION IS THE KEY

I. A former client of ours was married to a man who claimed that the client/Wife had a spending problem.  As the case progressed toward trial, the Husband went through 3 years of bank statements and made lists of expenditures he wanted to "attribute" to the wife's spending problem.

We carefully reviewed the bank statements and all other relevant financial documents ourselves and discovered that the Husband's claim that his Wife spent money unnecessarily on herself was without justification. In fact, our review showed that although the Wife made almost 100% of the deposits to the savings account, from her earnings (tens of thousands of dollars) the Husband withdrew in cash nearly as much money as the Wife had deposited into the savings account.

Our review of the couple's checking accounts compared to the list we received from the Husband showed that the Husband attributed all pet expenses (the Husband took the pets), groceries, medical expenses, household expenses to the Wife and even included his haircuts in his lists of the "Wife's spending".

This careful review of financial records surprised the Husband's attorney, changed the Husband's cocky attitude, and helped the Wife recognize who really spent the dollars.  This detailed preparation included numerous Exhibits supporting our position and led to a settlement favorable to the Wife on the day of trial. The hard factual evidence had the added effect of freeing the wife of the misplaced guilt she had been carrying due to the husbands constant false but effective insistence that she was solely responsible for their financial troubles.

REMOVAL OF CHILDREN FROM THE STATE OR COUNTRY

II (i) Client contacted us because he wanted to move to Europe.  He had physical custody of his teenage child and wanted to bring a removal action in the Probate and Family Court in order to take the child to Europe as well.  The child's Mother wanted the child to stay in Massachusetts.  We worked with the Mother's lawyer to reach an agreement that allowed the Father to move to Europe with the child and established plans for the Mother to visit the child in Europe every year and for the child to return to Massachusetts to spend time with her Mother during vacations.

II(ii) On a Thursday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. the Father of two young children came to us after the children's Mother had taken the children "on vacation" for two weeks to Canada and had not returned for more than 1 month.  He had since discovered she had vacated her apartment.  He feared that he would never see his children again.

By Friday afternoon, we obtained a court order for the Mother to return the children to the Father's custody in the United States.  We moved to implement the order in Canada by finding an experienced Family Law Attorney and had the Massachusetts Court Order entered as an enforceable Canadian Court Order. We had the Canadian Sheriffs on alert and seized the children with the Canadian order in hand on Friday of the next week we appeared with the Father of the children the day after they arrived back in Massachusetts to ensure that the Mother could not take the children again.  We secured sole permanent custody [Link to Custody & Child Support] for the Father until further court order.  To our knowledge, several years later, the Father still has custody. One frantic week of intense concentrated work made worthwhile by the being able to see the smiles and hugs all around of the father and his children!

FOREIGN DIVORCE MATTERS

III. A client had not seen his Wife in several years.  His Wife remained living in Europe after our client moved to Massachusetts.  We found and collaborated with an Attorney in Europe for our client and negotiated with the Wife's European Attorney to complete a Massachusetts divorce and a divorce in the European country including a full division of assets favorable to our client including a name change.

CHANGE IN CUSTODY

A client suddenly obtained custody of his son after the boy's Mother pushed the child through a sliding glass door.  Our client contacted us to help him reverse his child support obligation since he now had custody of the child.  

The Ex-Wife/Mother claimed to be disabled and without assets.  However, a diligent review of the financial situation of the parties showed that the Ex-Wife owned a home, which she had failed to report to the court.  We subpoenaed and reviewed the documents from her purchase of the home and her bank statements, we actually went to the bank to get them, and discovered that she had lied on her mortgage  application regarding her employment and income.  Further efforts revealed that the Wife failed to disclose to the court monies received from a personal injury lawsuit.  We learned that she did not accurately state her employment on her loan application and she under-reported her income as bank records showed over $90,000 in deposits per year for 2 consecutive years.  We ultimately settled the case and the Wife paid thousands of dollars in attorney's fees to avoid sanctions that the Judge threatened after reading our detailed and well-documented Pre-Trial Memorandum.