As a therapist you run in to all sorts of difficult situations. I’ve seen many times when clients ask therapists for guidance about whether they should follow what their divorce decree says about custody and parent-time, or whether they should withhold parent-time. Usually, this comes up when clients (or one of the parents if the child [...]
You’re sitting at your desk opening your mail. You get to a letter from someone you don’t know. After opening the letter and looking at the document inside, you realize it’s a subpoena. Your heart jumps a little. You don’t like dealing with this stuff. It’s stressful and it’s a waste because it takes away from [...]
One of the most common ways therapists are roped in to divorce cases is through writing what I call the “custody opinion letter.” You know these letters. A client, or a client’s parent, asks you to write a letter to the court giving your opinion about which parent should have custody. I have lost count of [...]
Testifying at a Utah divorce trial, or before trial at a deposition, is a nerve-racking experience. I know because, even though I’m a lawyer, I had to testify at trial once. I was anxious about the whole thing, even though I’ve done my fair share of divorce trials. Thankfully, I followed the 16 tips we give [...]
I read a lot (on track to read 125 this year), and when I finish a book, I always write a synopsis and post it on Facebook and LinkedIn. Why? Because I appreciate it when people take the time to give me book recommendations, so I'm trying to return the favor. The other day, I realized [...]
I’ve learned over the years that therapists dread the thought of having to testify. That makes sense. No one likes to testify. Attorneys would hate it if they ever had to testify, but they get to ask the questions instead of answering them, so they think testifying is great. Testimony happens at two different times during [...]
Your marriage hasn’t been good for a while. You haven’t been happy, and you decided to tell your spouse that you want a divorce. That was a difficult conversation, to say the least. At the end, though, your spouse decided to leave the house and get another place. The problem now is your spouse keeps coming [...]
One of the nice things about having a blog is I get to write anything. Now, I almost always write about divorce. That's the nature of what I do, and it's what I know best. Today, though, I wanted to write about lawyers and supplements. Not legal supplements, health supplements. Lawyers are notoriously bad at taking [...]
Can I Get an Annulment? We receive quite a few calls asking about annulments. Annulments are a way to say a marriage never really happened. Of course, that’s a fiction since people were really married and an annulment really gets people unmarried, but we indulge lots of fictions in law. In any case, annulments are actually [...]
About 98% of Utah divorces never go to trial. Almost all of them are settled through mediation and negotiation. That leaves about 2% that do end up in front of a judge. Of those divorces that do go to trial, how many days do the trials usually last? In my experience, if everything is on the [...]