Divorce Without the Drama
A Family Law Blog

New laws change the past, present, and future in New Jersey After years of talk, it has finally happened: marijuana is legal in New Jersey. On February 22, 2021, Governor Phil Murphy signed three different bills that, together, both legalized ...

What if parents disagree on whether or not to give their children the vaccine? A few of our clients have begun to reach out to ask the question: What happens if my ex and I disagree about whether our child(ren) should receive the COVID-19 ...

Once discovery has been completed, or in some cases, largely completed, the court will schedule your case for an Early Settlement Panel (ESP). The panelists are experienced family lawyers who have no involvement in the case, but serve in counties ...

If you have minor children and custody is at issue in your divorce (or in cases where the parties were not married), the court has a number of services available to parents to attempt to help them determine a custody and parenting time plan that ...

The Parent Education Program is a mandatory program for litigants with children to attend. Both litigants are required, by statute, to attend the program, but are scheduled for different dates. It takes place at the courthouse, or via Zoom or ...

First, the other party is served with the Complaint for Divorce or Acknowledges the Complaint for Divorce and files a responsive pleading; an Answer, an Appearance, or an Answer and Counterclaim for Divorce.  If they don’t answer, a default can ...

The job of a Custody Evaluator is to make a determination regarding the best interests of the child. Depending on the facts of your case, an evaluator’s determination regarding the “best interests” may include whether a party should have sole ...

Since the pandemic began, the backlog of cases in the New Jersey court system has more than doubled. Case backlogs are growing fastest in the Family Part. According to the Administrative Office of the Courts, which monitors this data, the backlog in ...

Do you have a “sexting” partner? If so, the Appellate Division says you could be in a “Dating Relationship” under the NJ Prevention of Domestic Violence Act Want to obtain a restraining order in New Jersey? The appellate division made that ...

With the onset of COVID-19 and Governor Murphy’s stay-at-home order, the court system has had to implement a number of procedures and protocols in order to allow courts to continue functioning while we all continue to social distance. Although ...

Want To Get Divorced? It’s Never Easy … Especially Now According to provisional data released by the CDC for the year 2017 (the latest year we have data for), the “marriage rate” is currently at 6.9 per every 1,000 people in the United ...

Attorney Carolyn Daly shares advice on navigating custody, parenting time, and child support through the COVID-19 period. Originally Published by New Jersey Family on April 13, 2020. Read it here. Many parents have questions about custody and ...

We are in the midst of a serious crisis. Unfortunately, some parties are taking that only too literally, weaponizing the current pandemic and social distancing guidelines to restrict the other party’s parenting time and ability to see his or her ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all of us with orders to stay at home, self-isolate, and social distance. This presents a number of unique challenges for family law practitioners. One of the most serious challenges is that for some of our ...

With the restrictions in place due to COVID-19, many of you are probably joking about how staying indoors is driving you insane. But what exactly is insanity? Generally, when we discuss someone who is “insane,” we think of an individual who has ...

It’s finally here. Some people dream of having kids from a young age, and others later. Regardless it becomes real and exciting and scary the moment you hear you are pregnant. Now you are finally at the point where mom is in labor (or is scheduled ...