Adoption is one of the best decisions a family can make. A child without a loving home, meets a loving home without that child: it’s perfect in every way. Sure, there may be some challenges along the way, but in the end, everyone should end up happy and safe. But what if your family is just, well, you? That’s okay,…
We hear this question a lot, so before we get into specifics, here’s the short answer: none. No one is ever entitled to alimony. It is entirely up to the judge’s discretion, unless you and your soon-to-be ex-spouse work out an agreement on your own in your Marital Dissolution Agreement. However, just because you (or your spouse) will not automatically…
Because of what we do, we know that great parents come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, those parents are biologically related to their children; sometimes they’re not. We also know there are some excellent step-parents out there who do just as much as their spouses do when it comes to creating a great home for the children. We know…
It’s hard to think about planning for retirement when you’re 16 or 18 – or even 30. It’s even harder to think about what will happen after your gone. So, it makes sense that many people want to put off estate planning until they have, well, an estate – and that even people with substantial assets might not want to…
It is completely understandable that a person might think that a divorce can be easily resolved by downloading a few forms, filling them out and filing them with the court. The divorce process can be expensive, so some folks will try to cut those costs by doing it themselves. But just because you and your spouse get along, that doesn’t…
Yes, you can, as per the Tennessee Supreme court. (State of Tennessee v. Anthony John Silva) A driver who is stopped for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and directed by the law enforcement officer to perform field sobriety tests can pass the tests and still be arrested for DUI and taken to jail. In 2015, the Tennessee…
Tennessee’s child support guidelines calculate child support based on how much income both parents earn and how much time the child spends with each parent. But what happens when the parent who is paying child support has questions about the way in which the receiving parent is spending the child support payments? Is the parent who receives child support payments…
Celebrity news is a Catch 22 in a lot of ways. On the one hand, we’re divorce lawyers, and that makes stories about divorce, child support and custody interesting to us. On the other hand, we’re not representing Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, or Tarek or Christina El Moussa, so we don’t want to comment too much since we don’t…
Tennessee, like many places in the United States right now, is facing down the challenge of an opioid-fueled methamphetamine epidemic. It seems there is constant news coverage of drug busts and the dangerous and often deadly overdoses of the customers of those fledgling operations that are cropping up to meet the ever-growing demand for meth. The Tennessean reported on the…
We make mistakes in our youth; the young tend to think they’re invincible, and often can’t see the repercussions of a “mistake” that involves the law. But flash forward to now. You have gotten your life on track, and you looking forward to getting a good job and having a positive future – but your criminal record is hanging over…