My wife recently reminded me I opened Brown Law seven years ago — October 2010 to be precise. Man, how things have changed in seven years. I usually don’t wax nostalgic, but I think this milestone deserves a little reflection. The Beginning of Brown Law — New Mexico The Brown Law story started, not in Utah, [...]
We deal with two types of property in Utah divorces: real property and personal property. Real Property v. Personal Property Real property is where all the money is. We’re talking about homes, farms, buildings, etc. Personal property is less sexy, more mundane. Personal property is you own that isn’t real property, e.g.: clothes, jewelry, furniture, cars, [...]
During marriage, you share everything. In divorce, you split everything. And by everything, I mean everything. Kids. Debts. Assets. Homes. On the asset side of things, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, there are lots of odd things that qualify. Here’s a list of those oddities: Accounts receivable in a business Unpaid loans (owed to [...]
The other day, I posted our internal Utah divorce default checklist. In some of the nest posts, I’ll provide the documents mentioned in the checklist. These are the documents we actually use in our divorces. First document is the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law we use. This document is specific to defaults, so it [...]
Some cases you read from the Utah Court of Appeals are captivating reading. They have great facts, or at least weird enough facts to keep things interesting. The opinion might have some new law in it that will really with cases going forward And then there are some cases that say pretty much the same things [...]
Contested Divorce v. Uncontested Divorce Not all divorces go to trial. Only about 1%–2% ever get that far. And only a fraction of divorces ever get before a judge. Most contested divorces (probably 75%–80%) go straight to mediation and get done there. The stats above apply to “contested divorces” (i.e., divorces where people are actually fighting [...]
Stuff happens. Maybe you were in a relationship with a lady and things didn’t work out. Maybe you got back together with your ex-wife and things didn’t end up working out. Whatever the case, your ex is pregnant with your baby and you’re not married. What do you do? Honestly, there are a thousand different answers [...]
It’s not often you see the Utah Supreme Court take on a case in which a juvenile court found child abuse. The standard is pretty low for child abuse (scary low, in fact), so the Supreme Court seems to naturally assume abuse happened. That and you do get the Utah Appellate Court reviewing juvenile court findings [...]
In the last of the a handful of divorce cases decided by the Utah Court of Appeals recently, the Court discusses the riveting subject known as the “homestead exemption.” A quick primer: the Court explains the purpose of the homestead exemption like this: The general purpose of a homestead exemption is to protect citizens and their [...]
There are moments when a case comes along just screaming to be punned. Rule v. Rule, recent handed down by Utah Court of Appeals, is just such a case. The gist of the case is this: Couple divorces. They go to trial and argue about, well, everything, including alimony. The court determines there’s not enough money [...]