The Ward Law Firm Georgia: Recent Episodes
David J. Ward, Esq.
We have extensive experience in family law and specialize in divorces involving small business owners and solo practices. When a divorce case involves a small business or private practice, we bring in some of the best business valuation and assessment teams in the industry. We also bring in other experts when necessary to help you protect your business.
Visit us today at http://www.wardlawfirmga.com or call (770) 383-1973. We explain what to expect throughout the divorce process, reducing the doubt and uncertainty that many people feel before filing. Our divorce law firm serves clients in Gwinnett County and throughout the state of Georgia. Call now 770-383-1973.
Hi, I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm.
And sometimes, families can find themselves in a situation where they have either nieces, nephews or more commonly grandchildren who are in a situation where their parents are not properly taking care of them. And the children, as a result of that, are in some sort of immediate threat of either physical or psychological harm.
In those instances, Georgia Law does allow certain third parties. Those being grandparents and certain other blood relatives, like aunts and uncles, to seek custody from the parents of the child.
In those instances, there are certain presumptions that apply and that must be overcome before party can prevail on that sort of an action. And those presumptions are number one, that a parent is a fit and proper parent. That's one of the presumptions that applies.
The second presumption is that fit parents make decisions that are in the best interest of their children.
And our third presumption, is that it is in the child's best interest that the parent have custody.
In a situation where those presumptions can be rebutted, in order for the third party, which is the other grand prawner or one of these blood relatives that we discussed to gain custody, the trial court has to determine that the child would suffer either long term emotional or psychological harm or would suffer physical harm by the continuation of parental custody.
The fact that it simply might happen is not sufficient under those circumstances.
So, if you have any other questions about third party custody, if you have a child that you're concerned about and want to learn more contact us today. Remember I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and we protect business owners who are facing divorce.
Hi, I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm.
And one of the things that I want to let you all know is we take what we do very, very seriously at the Ward Law Firm and we have certain core beliefs here that we operate by and that govern the decisions that we make, how we handle things, etcetera.
And one that I wanted to talk about, because I'm particularly passionate about it, it's that sure to Ward Law Firm, we protect children.
All too often, we see situations where parties are using children as pawns to try and manipulate the other party to hurt the other party. And those types of actions cause immense psychological harm to children. We take that sort of behavior extraordinarily seriously.
Number one: We don't engage in those types of things. We simply refuse to do that. Children are not pawns in the divorce setting. They are usually unintended victims of the circumstances.
One of the things that we will do, in any case where children are involved, is we're gonna use everything at our disposal, within the realm of the law to protect children from those types of behaviors from other parties.
So, again, we do have a number of core values but I wanted to share that one with you because it's one that I am particularly, particularly committed to and feel very, very passionately about.
So, if you have any other questions or want to learn more about or need the Ward Law Firm, give us a call. I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and we protect children.
Hi, I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm.
One of the things that comes up frequently when you're dealing with any sort of spousal support payments is whether or not those payments can be modified and if they can what are the grounds for that?
There are a couple of rules that come into play when we're talking about modifying alimony. And the first one is that the only type of permanent alimony that is subject to being modified is periodic alimony.
See, in some instances, a court can order or the parties can agree that there will be a lump sum payment that will be qualified as alimony. In those cases, the law stands right now stating that that cannot be modified. However, when we have periodic payment such as monthly payments, those are subject to modification and there's two primary grounds that can be assorted to the trial court when asking for that modification.
The first one has to do with the change in the financial conditions of the parties - either the parties incomes have gone up or they've gone down. So, that affects a number of different considerations that the court is supposed to look at when there's a wording alimony to begin with, specifically, the needs of the party who's receiving it and the ability of the other party to pay it.
So, that is one of the grounds that a court can look to in determining whether or not it's going to modify alimony payments. And when it does that, it needs to, again, refactor those types of considerations in determining if it's going to modify it at all and if so how much.
The other ground that we have for modifying periodic alimony is voluntary cohabitation of the party who's receiving the alimony. What that means is, that's defined as the party receiving the alimony being engaged with a living person in a meticulous relationship. So, courts look to two different sorts of ways that can be proved.
The first is by proving that there is cohabitation going on and that the parties are engaging in sexual congress, that's one of the ways. That is a very difficult thing to prove ordinarily.
There is a second way that the court can do that and that is by looking to see whether or not the people who are cohabiting together are both contributing to the household bills that are going on.
In the instance where the only proof that you have is the proof that the parties are sharing some of the expenses, in that circumstance, there is some authority that says that in modifying for those reasons, a court should consider just how much benefit is being derived by having that other party contributing in some way to the household expenses. And that authority is not binding on our trial court at this point but it has been stated by a justice in our supreme court so it is persuasive authority for that.
So, if you have any other questions about alimony or modifying alimony, give me a call. I'm David Ward at the Ward Law Firm and we help protect business owners facing divorce.
Hi, I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm.
One of the questions that has come up recently and I thought I would share with you is, whether or not alimony or spousal support can be modified retroactively? In other words, if periodic alimony has become due and payable, is the court allowed to go back at some later point in time and force the party who received it to pay it back to the paying party?
Well, that issue has been litigated in our pellet courts and the Supreme Court of Georgia has come back and said "No." And the reason that makes a certain amount of sense we don't want to have to force people to come back up with money that we know they were depending on at the time that they received it knowing that money has probably already been spent.
So, as a result of that, it's really a common sense approach once periodic alimony has accrued and become payable, it is not subject to being modified retroactively. So, that addresses the question of whether or not we can address alimony and modify that retroactively and of course that's very similar to our child support laws which also state that is not subject to being modified retroactively.
So, if you have any other questions about spousal support and child support and you need to talk to somebody about it, give us a call. Remember, I'm Dave Ward of the Ward Law Firm and we protect business owners facing divorce.
Hi, this is Dave Ward of the Ward Law Firm. We protect business owners facing divorce. We're going to be discussing three tips for business owners to help protect their business through the divorce process.
The third thing that you can be doing in order to protect your business would be, to reduce the amount of cash being held in the business.
There are a couple of different ways of doing this. Probably, the most common one would simply be, to pay yourself a good salary, which sometimes sounds counter intuitive. Your account will probably disagree with this particular thing but if you're facing divorce, there's a good reason for this.
Number one, the valuation of the business often times can be calculated in a number of different ways. But one of the things that's often times taking into account, in most of the message that you could be using to evaluate is, going to be the size of the cash holdings in the business.
So, that can be very very problematic. By removing the cash from the business, that is now an asset that you can have to use to offset the value of the business when you're looking at dividing the assets. So, that way you're able to keep your business intact without having to split, sell off assets, or do anything else that might potentially harm the business.
So, those are three tips that you can use if you're facing a divorce and you're trying to protect your business. If you're interested in learning more, call the information below and we can set up a time to do a Real Case Analysis for you.
I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and we protect business owners facing divorce.
What advice do you often give to your clients and why?
Well, that depends. There are two things that I usually tell my client, both of equal value.
The first thing has to do with any case that involves children and the first thing that I tell my clients about children is, children do not need to be involved in a divorce.
That's one of the things, it's part of our core values at the Ward Law Firm, we don't believe children are tools or weapons to be used to get other things that people may want in a divorce.
We don't engage in those sorts of tactics. And we don't stand by idly if we see somebody else trying to use those tactics against our clients.
We take the protection of children extremely seriously. So, we always advise our clients, do everything you can to keep your children out of the divorce and make sure that they're gonna be okay whether that is, you know, just spending more time with them, taking care of them, those sorts of things, and in some cases, divorce are stressful for a child so sometimes it may involve seeing professional help for the kids and make sure that they're gonna be okay and they're gonna come through unscared.
For a child, the most important thing is they know mom and dad still love them. So that, that is one of our really, really at the heart of our hard core values at the Ward Law Firm.
Second thing I tell people and this is equally as important and really applies to pretty much any sort of case and that is, tell me everything.
Make sure that you share absolutely everything with your attorney and you know, the joke that I tell people and I say this tongue-in-cheek when I say it, but you know, you can lie to your spouse, you can lie to your priest. But there are two people in your life that you never, ever lie to. One is your doctor and the other is your lawyer.
The reason is because the truth has a way of seeing the light of day and if there's something going on, the things that people tend to hide from their lawyer are things that they think are either the lawyers gonna think that they're a bad person or they're not particularly flattering facts, etc. and more often than not, that sort of thing ends up causing tremendous heartache down the road because if I know everything that I'm dealing with, I can prepare strategy that addresses all those things.
Whereas, if I find out in the middle of the trial about this bad fact, not only am I not prepared at that point to counter it, more often than not, these are things that you know, with the use of different witnesses, and different strategies can be dealt with.
What I tell people is, you're kind of left with what I can think of while I'm standing there talking to either a witness or the jury. You don't want that. So, it's critically important that you tell your lawyer absolutely everything about your case to make sure that whoever that lawyer is, understands everything that's going on in your case.
Well, the main folks that I work with are business owners and there are a couple of different reasons for that and you know one of them has to do with my background. I understand the role of finances and things like that are going to play an enormous role in any divorce case that involves a business owner. But the truth is, I'm a business owner you know and I understand what people go through.
Not only starting, building, maintaining a business, but I can also relate to their concerns that a business owners can have after. You know you really as a business owner you pour your whole self into the business you know. And you really are married to the business in a very, very real way. So, I understand and I appreciate the challenges and even the emotional stuff that goes along with working through a divorce where a business is concerned.
Well, I think what makes me stand out from other attorneys that are handling divorce cases is my financial background. Unlike a lot of my colleagues, if you talk to a lot of attorneys, except probably the one in section being either tax attorneys or estate planning attorneys, most attorneys hate numbers and they went to law school so they didn't have to deal with them, etc.
My background is in finance. I have a degree in finance. I worked for years as a financial planner before going to law school. So, I understand numbers in a way that most of colleagues don't. And when I'm trying to help somebody particularly business owners, it's critical important to be able to understand the language and speak to the various types of experts and understand what it is that they are telling you in order to be able to provide the highest value that you can to your clients, so that's probably the single biggest thing that makes me stand out from other divorce attorneys.
What makes me or what I'm particularly good at is clients frequently come to me and go through and we do their real case analysis and I usually come up to the end and I ask, "What sort of questions do you have?" And the most common answer I get is, "You were great. I don't have any other-- you were really thorough and answered everything that I was concerned about."
So, I really pride myself on being able to provide the information that a client needs, whether that's somebody who's simply contemplating a divorce or somebody who's actually engaged in the process.
Hi this is Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and we protect business owners facing divorce.
And what I want to talk to you about today is something that most business owners face with a divorce are going to have to deal with particularly if they don't have a pre or a post nuptial agreement in place that covers their business. And that is dealing with business valuations.
There are three primary ways to value a business or three different approaches. A forensic accountant or certified divorce financial analyst is going to look to when they're trying to evaluate the true value of your business.
And those three ways are the income approach, the market approach or the asset approach. And each one of these looks at different sorts of things in order to come up with the valuation and the one that you're going to see used more commonly than not in a situation where you're dealing with a closely held corporation is the income approach.
The income approach basically, what it does is it takes a look at income. The total income that's being generated for the business owner. And then what it does is it takes it and it capitalizes it. What does that mean? Well, what that means is, if I had an asset and that asset had to produce the amount of income that the business income, how much would that asset be? In other words, how much would that money be, okay? How much money would it take to generate it that?
So what they'll do is they'll calculate all of the income that is flowing to the business owner and then use a capitalization rate to determine what that ultimate amount is in that capitalization rate will take into account a number of different things including industry risks, risk related to size. All and any number of different things, there's actually a pretty extensive list of things that can be considered. But that's the one that you're going to see more often than not when you're dealing with a closely held corporation.
The other two methods— there is the market method, that's number two. And the market method has to do with looking for comparable sales that have occurred, that you can get information about. The reason why this isn't usually very good for closely held businesses is because usually when you're dealing with the sale of closely held business, the information related that is not going to be public. In other words, it's not going to be available, so you're going to have a very, very hard time finding comparable sales. So for that reason, you're very, very rarely going to see anybody do a market type calculation as to the value of the business.
The final one is called the asset based approach. And the asset based approach can apply to a number of closely held corporations where the business itself is more related to the value of the assets that are owned by the business than it is to anything else. And sometimes what you'll see in that are situations where you have the business owner is the primary driving force behind the income of the business.
In a situation like that, when you sell that particular business, the presumption is you're not selling the owner with it, which means that the thing that's driving all the revenue is no longer part of it and in a situation like that in certain businesses where that's the case, the better valuation, in order to get an accurate assessment of what the business could likely sell for is to use an asset-based approach and that approach is where they take a look at the value of all the assets. And they may include a small component of what's called goodwill, which comes from simply the name of the business.
Probably the biggest one that I participated in is the Relay For Life for the American Cancer Society. This is the one that has a lot of personal significance for me. I started doing this with my wife actually shortly after she and I have started dating. She's a teacher. She works at an elementary school in Beaufort. And her school every year set up a booth for the Relay For Life, you know I don't know when that county still has the largest one in the world but for a very, very long time the Relay For Life in Gwinnett County, Georgia was -- I believe it's still one of the biggest if not the biggest ones in the world.
But it has a special meaning for Amy and I. And there are two reasons for that. The first one just prior to meeting Amy, my mother was diagnosed with bladder cancer. And she's a cancer survivor. She's healthy today, thankfully, totally cancer free which we're very thankful for. The other reason has to do with my father in law. Amy's father, when I met Amy had been battling cancer for many years. It started off in his bladder and eventually, metastasized went to his lungs and his liver. And unfortunately, we lost her father. We lost Amy's father you know about a year before we ended up getting married.
So, that takes on a very, very personal meaning for both Amy and I because cancer has touched both of our lives in a very real and profound ways. So that's probably the biggest thing that we get involved with because we just think it's so important to be involved into fight for a cure.
I graduated from law school in 2004. And graduating in May, the first opportunity I have is to take the bar in July. So, I took it in July 2004, I passed and was sworn into practice in September of 2004. That was in North Carolina and that's where I cut my teeth practicing law. I then moved to Georgia and I had practiced long enough at that point to where thankfully, I didn't have to sit down and take the bar again because after you've practiced for a certain number of years, you know most bars figure out you know what you're doing at that point.
So, I didn't have to sit down and take the bar again but that's when I moved to Georgia and shortly after that, I worked for a little while for some of the -- actually some of the big name law firms in the area but ultimately decided that I want to go back to owning my own business and going and helping the people that I like to help and that's why I started the Ward Law Firm.
What sets us apart from other law firms in addition to having particular skill set that most of our colleagues do not have when it comes to being able to handle the challenges faced by business owners, the other thing that really separates us from most other law firms is we make it a point to make sure that when you come to us, you work directly with your attorney the whole time.
Now, we've found that some people you know are happier with you know or assistance of paralegals etc. and they develop a good relationships and more often than another more comfortable talking and speaking to them about certain types of things but we pride ourselves in making sure that if you have a legal question, you need to talk to your lawyer, you're going to be able to talk to your lawyer.
You know and obviously, we're trial lawyers. We have our court schedules and things like that you know. And one of the things that we make sure of is that when we're working on somebody's case, we stay focused on that case. So if I'm working on your case, I'm not going to be taking phone calls that or going to distract me from what I'm doing to try and help you in advance your case along. But when people do call in, we do make sure that they get that opportunity to speak with their attorney, get their questions answered, and make sure that they're answered thoroughly.
The kids, helping kids. I really enjoyed that that part of things. You know as an attorney, we're really very lucky as attorneys. We have a chance to make a profound impact in the lives of everybody who comes to us and needing help with something. And you know, I love being able to do that for my clients and I especially love when I'm able to help protect children and make sure that they're going be okay. That's one of the things that I love the most.
The thing that I love almost as much is being able to help other business owners. You know I don't know that I have mentioned this before but this is the second iteration of the word law firm. I had started a practice in North Carolina that I had for years before I decided to move to Georgia and ultimately closed that one down in favor of coming down here to Georgia.
And having ran my own law firm for the better part of the last 11 years, now I understand the love and the dedication of everything that goes into building a business and being heaped to help a fellow entrepreneur protect that and make sure that that's going to continue to flourish even after the divorce process is something I get tremendous satisfaction from.
A case that I'm particularly proud of is actually that we settled at mediation not all that long ago. I'm going to call my client 'Kim'. We'll call her Kim. Kim and her husband had built up a business from scratch, right after they got married. And built it up towards producing several hundred thousand dollars a year in income to the household, which is pretty substantial considering they really only started the business about three years ago. So, that's back in 2013. 2012-2013 is when they started this. And the big overriding issue in the case of course was the business, what's going to happen to it? And ultimately, my client Kim wasn't interested in continuing to work with the business. She had decided that she wanted to leave Georgia because of some family members that she has out of state.
So she wasn't interested in maintaining and interested in the business but she did want to have the fact that she had to spend a considerable amount of time and energy building what is now a very lucrative business and to make sure that she was going to be able to get what was fair on-- through the divorce process and making sure that that she wasn't short-changed for her efforts in building this tremendous business.
We went to mediation and of course we had an expert and I had prepared with our expert for the mediation gone through, had all of our valuations and everything like that in hand but we like to not to have our expert come with us to the mediation just because-- frankly, at a mediation, you don't want to have too many cooks, too many chiefs, and not enough Indians can lead to problems that don't need to be problems.
So we elected, in our case not to have her come with us. But for some reason though, they decided to have their expert come with them. So, they brought their forensic accountant and we were discussing the valuations of the business and we had decided that we're going to let our clients go and do, have a little free time and the attorneys and this particular expert in the mediate, we were all going to sit down and go over things.
And through that process, even though I didn't have my expert sitting with me, just having gone and prepared with her, more importantly, having a financial background and being able to understand that, we were able to go through that process and just pick a part all the things that they had done to try and reduce the value of the business so that way Kim's husband would get out of it by paying her far, far less than what she was really entitled to after everything was said and done.
And we were able to do that for our client because we have a strong financial background and that's what we do. So by having that knowledge and being able to apply it in a situation, an important situation, we not only were able to help get the other side to understand, we knew what they were doing it and why it was they weren't going to be able to do it. And probably, most importantly is letting them know that we know how to counter that if that's what you try to provide at trial. That allowed us to bring the parties together to a valuation that was fair to everybody. We were able to settle that case that day.
So that's one story that I'm particularly proud of.
Hi, I’m Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I protect the small business owner who’s facing divorce. In this series, we’re talking about the top 10 mistakes that we see people make when they’re facing a divorce in Georgia. Number 9 on our list is refusing to try and settle the case out of court. This decision again like many of the other mistakes that we’ve talked about is almost invariably the result of the strong emotions that come along dealing with the divorce situation. However, this mistake is huge on a number of levels. First and foremost, an important statistic that I think is important for people to know is when you’re talking about a divorce, 90 plus percent of divorce cases settle and there are a number of reasons for this.
The first reason, and people don’t often think about this at the outset, a divorce case can be expensive just by itself. A divorce trial is extraordinarily expensive. Most family law attorneys, myself included, handle things on an hourly basis so the things that take up more time are invariably going to be more expensive and with all the preparation that goes into play, interviewing witnesses, preparing opening statements, closing statements, it’s extremely time consuming and becomes very, very, very, very expensive extremely quickly and probably more importantly and this is the one that people overlook or don’t think about but experience has shown us that people who are able to reach a settlement agreement in their divorce case are invariably happier with the result than are people who take their case to trial and let the judge decide. Part of that comes from knowing that you had a hand in deciding what was going to be happening to you and what was going to be happening in your life. So it’s a critical mistake that we always talk to people about when they come in and see us for their case analysis. Make sure that when you’re considering the process of a divorce and you’re moving through it that you remain open to the advantages that can come from entering settlement negotiations or even mediating your case. It can make a tremendous difference both during the divorce and after.
I’m Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect business owners who are facing divorce in Georgia.
Hi, this is Dave Ward and this is number 10 in our series of the top 10 mistakes we see people make when they’re getting divorced in Georgia. The 10th mistake that I see people make so often is trying to represent themself against the party who is represented by an attorney.
I frequently get asked the question is it possible for somebody to represent themself in a divorce. The response that I usually give is it’s sort of akin to say asking if it’s possible for a dentist to give themself a root canal. I suppose it’s possible but it’s not where any rational person would do. This is particularly true in a situation where the other side is represented by an attorney.
Attorneys are going to be familiar with and understand not only the procedures of the court but all of the rules of evidence. They’re going to understand the deadlines that are involved; when things have to be filed, when things have to be turned over and all those types of things and if you’re going to choose to represent yourself, you’re going to be held up to exactly that same standard and I can tell you from my own experience for trying cases against unrepresented parties, it very, very rarely works out well for the unrepresented party because they simply are not equipped with the tools necessary to do and understand what has to be done at various points throughout the case.
You’ve just finished our series on the top 10 mistakes we see people make when they’re getting divorced in Georgia. It’s important to understand this list is non-exhaustive. There is almost an unlimited list of mistakes that we see. These are just the ones that we see most often. If you’re looking at a divorce and particularly if you’ve reached this point or you’ve watched all 10 of our videos then it seems pretty clear at this point that there is something going on and I always tell people, it’s important to speak with an attorney at the outset of the process. Don’t wait until some point later on. Having good information at the outset can make a tremendous difference going through the entire process. If you would like to contact us and set up a time for us to do a real case analysis of your case where we will sit down and review the facts with you, we’ll evaluate the legal issues that are present in your case, we’ll analyze the strategies that can be employed in your case and we’ll create a list of next step action items for you. All you need to do is contact us. You’ll find our contact information below. That’s it for our series. I’m Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect business owners who are facing divorce in Georgia.
I'm Dave Ward, from the Ward Law Firm and I protect the business owner who’s facing divorce. And in this series of videos, we’re going to be talking about the top ten mistakes we see people make when they're getting divorce in Georgia.
And the first one that we see people make and this is particularly in cases where people are trying to represent themselves, is failing to follow the rules that the court sets forth and adhering to them strictly. This is a critically important state that we see people make because what they don't realize is that when you elect to represent yourself, you're going to be expected to know all the procedural rules of the court. You're going to be expected to know the rules of evidence and how they applying court and then you understand what your obligations are throughout the legal process.
Most people think that because they've elected to represent themselves, that the judge will be understanding or forgiving if they miss a deadline or if they make certain types of mistakes. And the reality is, if you elect to represent yourself, you’re going to be held to exactly the same standard that any licensed and practicing attorney would be held too.
So, this is an important consideration that everybody should give serious thought to, if they're considering representing themselves throughout the divorce process.
I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who is facing divorce.
Well, probably the biggest turning point -- I started my career doing criminal defense work. And I did it, for really, the same reason that I like doing family law work and that is I really like helping people, particularly people who aren't in a situation that they can necessarily help themselves with.
And criminal matters are frequently like that but divorce is too because a lot of people don't really know what their options are or understand how to address different types of situations that they're going to be confronted with throughout the divorce process. So I really do love that, being able to help people but probably something that was career changing for me.
It's really a big part of what I now do family law and not doing criminal defense and it's also a part of why we have certain core values. I talked frequently about a situation, about a client that I often refer to as Jim, that's not his real name but Jim had a situation where he and his wife were divorcing. She was in the military stationed overseas and Jim had their two small boys in his care. And he came to me on an initial consultation and at that consultation, we were able to do something immediately to help his kids.
At the time, I was doing both family law work and criminal work and as a result of this, I really shifted my thinking and moved towards doing the family law only. And it came down to the feeling I had in knowing, walking away from something I was able in sitting down, doing a case analysis with somebody, able to give them a piece of information that immediately changed the game for him and for his children.
That was to contact the chain of command that his wife was a part of in order to get the Army's assistance in making sure that she was going to continue supporting the children and the household through the process and that they weren't going to be left out to dry and get evicted from their household, those kinds of things. It was the helping the kids that made the difference for me.
Divorce Lawyer Gwinnett County | 2nd Tip to Protect Businesses During the Divorce Process by David J. Ward, Esq.
Divorce Attorney Duluth | 1st Tip to Protect Businesses During the Divorce Process by David J. Ward, Esq.
Hi, this is Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce. The fifth mistake that I see people make, and this is doozy as well, is involving the children in the case, and this takes many, many forms, whether that be discussing the case with children or asking children to pass information back and forth to the other parent, saying negative things in front of the children, trying to coerce the children to do or say particular things.
Divorce is hard for anybody. No one, no one is it more difficult for than children, especially smaller children. It is a complete disruption of everything that brings safety to their world and that is their parents. By involving them in the process, it creates substantial harm to them in many cases in ways that won't be known for years and years and years, which is why at the Ward Law Firm, we have a very very strong philosophy. And one of our core values is we absolutely do not involve children in divorce cases. There are people out there that would chose to use their children as weapons throughout the divorce process and using the children to get back at other people. We absolutely refuse to engage in that and we will do everything possible to make sure that that doesn’t happen in your case. But the critical thing to take away from this video is it's critically important, leave your children out of the divorce process and out of the divorce case. All the child needs to know is that mommy and daddy still loves him or her and that's it.
At this point, we are halfway through with our series on the top 10 mistakes that people make when they're facing a divorce in Georgia and you've watched the first 5 videos and you're now at this one. It's clear that there may be something going on and I usually tell people, the best time to speak with an attorney is at the outset, not at some other point in the process if you're looking at a divorce. So I want to make sure that you know that below you'll find our contact information. Give me a call and we'll set up a time to do a real case analysis for you where we're going to review the facts and evaluate the legal issues that you're facing. We'll analyze the strategies that are available to you and make a list for you of the next action items for you to take care and take a look at as you're moving on to different stages of the process.
I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
Hi, I'm Dave Ward, from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing a divorce.
And in this second part of our series on the top ten mistakes that we see people make when they're facing a divorce, we're going to talk about having unrealistic expectations. And this can be a tremendous handicap throughout the entire divorce process for a number of reasons.
The first and probably the most obvious is that having unrealistic expectations is invariably going to lead to disappointing results. A lot of people, when they are faced with a divorce, there's oftentimes a sense of anger and feelings of having been wronged through some aspect of either the marriage or through the process itself of being divorced.
And people make the mistake of thinking that all of those things are always going to be taken into consideration into every decision that the court makes. And the reality is, that's just not true. There are certain things that court is going to consider, particularly as they relate to certain types of issues.
But most people go into court expecting that the court's going to understand that you aren't treated a particular way or that you weren't able to get certain other things and the court's going to take those things into account and they're very disappointed when they get to court and realize that those aren't the issues that the court is going to be considering, because courts, when they're asked to make these decisions, have a number of guiding principles that they're going to adhere to in evaluating the case and the evidence in making its decisions.
And like I said, there are some things that the court is going to consider that would be important in this regard. But by and large, the court is going to just adhere strictly to those things that it's required to and not take certain other things into account.
So, making sure that you approach the situation, having realistic expectations of what reasonable outcomes can be in your case can mean the difference between coming through the process and moving on versus coming through the process and being extremely disappointed in the way things ended out. So, if you have any questions about this, contact our office and we'll set up a time to do a real case analysis for you.
I'm Dave Ward, from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce. In this series, we're talking about the top 10 mistakes that people make when facing a divorce in Georgia and the third mistake that we see people make that invariably ends up coming around and biting them in the end is attempting to hide or destroy assets or evidence, and this is an enormous mistake that I can't understate the importance of avoiding.
One of the truths that most people don’t really realize is that throughout the divorce process, as the saying goes, 'the truth will out.' It's going to come out in some way, some form or fashion, almost invariably in ways that nobody anticipates and that nobody expected. And it's for this reason that when people do attempt to either hide evidence or destroy evidence, those types of things, they're going to end up getting caught. And when they do, there are substantial penalties that the court is going to levy for having attempted to do those things.
So if you're facing a divorce, it's critically important that you understand that you absolutely should not attempt to hide or destroy evidence. Cause like I said, invariably it is going to come out and when it does, the situation is going to be a whole lot worse than if that evidence had simply been put out in the open right from the beginning.
I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who is facing divorce.
I'm Dave Ward, from the Ward Law Firm and I protect the business owner who's facing divorce. In the series we're still talking about the top ten mistakes that people make when they're facing a divorce.
And the fourth mistake that I see people make over and over and over again is, believe it or not, lying to their lawyer. And the irony of that is, when you come to speak to a lawyer, most lawyers will tell you that, that everything stays confidential and that we're going to work to present everything in the best light possible, etcetera.
What people often think, though, is that if I tell my lawyer something or mislead the lawyer in some form or fashion, they're going to go and they're going to advocate that that's the situation they're going to be able to establish it and that some benefit will be derived from having done all those things.
And what they don't realize, and this goes back to the video that we had in the third part of this series, which had to do with hiding or destroying evidence and that is that the truth invariably is going to come out. And the way I explain this to my clients is, when I am standing in a courtroom, if there is something that I need to know, particularly a bad fact, this is when this comes up the most, if there is a bad fact, you want me to know that first of all. And for a number of reasons, you want me to be the one that brings it up, so I can sort of take the sting out than rather than waiting for the other side to try and bring these things up.
And the reason why this is such an important thing is because if I'm standing in a courtroom and I find out a bad fact from the other side in the middle of a trial or in the middle of a hearing, you're going to be stuck with whatever comes out of my mouth at that time.
Now, I'm pretty experienced and I'm pretty trained, but I can tell you, the response that I would have prepared in advance is going to have been light-years better that what you're going to get from me on the spot finding out something for the first time.
And, like I just said, the truth is going to come out in some form or fashion, so making sure that your lawyer understands all of the facts, the good, the bad and the ugly is critically important to being able to build the best case possible for you to try and get the best result you can get in your case.
I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
This is Dave Ward from the Ward law firm and I help protect business owners who are facing divorce. In this series we will be talking about the top ten mistakes we see people make when they're facing divorce.
Number six, not taking time to fully understand and ask questions about their case. This is a mistake that I see people make commonly because, to be perfectly honest, most people aren't comfortable when they go to a lawyer and lawyers understand that believe it or not.
Nobody comes to us because they're riding in on the wings of victory or at least certainly not a family law attorney. They usually come to us in very difficult time of life, that has a lot going on, there's a lot on their mind and what can end up happening is a result of that is there's a lot of information to be gathered at the outset and if you're meeting with an attorney frequently, you're going to get a lot of information given to you at a relatively short period of time and it can take time to digest those things.
So, one of the things that can help with that, number one, is coming into any case analysis, having a list of questions written down that you want to make sure that you have answered. Trying to remember those things on the spot usually is a very very difficult thing and like I said, it's because of the amount of information that is usually provided when a case analysis is done.
Another thing that happens is people will often times, even if they come in with their initial questions, they'll leave the office and suddenly remember something, whether it's popping up at three a.m. in bed, thinking oh I should have asked this, or what I tell my clients is they're going to get to their car and think of five questions that they didn't ask.
So what I always encourage people to do is make sure that any of those questions crop up after a consultation, I am always happy to receive a phone call of somebody who has some follow up questions because that tells me that they're interested in their own case and they're trying to educate themselves and that makes them stand apart and puts them in a much much better position because they've taken the time to understand all of the things they need to know about their case because everybody's case is a little bit different and when you come in for a case analysis, you should make sure that it's your case that's being discussed and make sure that your case is the one that's understood. So again, this has to do with the sixth mistake. It is related to not taking the time to make sure that all of your questions are answered.
I’m Dave Ward, from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect business owners who are facing divorce in Georgia.
This is Dave Ward from the Ward Law firm and I help protect the business owner who is facing divorce. The seventh mistake that I see people make when they're getting divorced in Georgia is, they make a number of decisions that are justified only by stating it's the principle. That usually is a product of some of the emotions that come out throughout the divorce process. There is almost always some degree of hurt. Some degree of anger. Some degree of maybe even of confusion that can lead to people make bad decisions based on this notion that it's the principle of something.
As we discussed previously in this series courts, when they're going through and they're making their decisions, they have certain guidelines that they're required to adhere to and things that they're required to consider in going through making decisions that they have to make; whether that is something related to appropriate division or alimony or child custody, child support. Any number of these things, all them have their own guiding principles that are done, but those are the courts guiding principles. And frequently, people can confuse the principles that they're concerned with such as principles of what's fair. Things of that nature based on things that aren't necessarily the course considerations and what this ends up having the effect of is creating unrealistic expectations.
So, if you hear yourself starting to say, I want to do this because it's the principle of it, almost invariably a bad decision is about to follow when you're involved in a divorce case like this. So this is why this is number seven on our list of the top ten mistakes we see people make in Georgia when they're getting divorced.
I'm Dave Ward, from the Ward Law firm, and I help protect business owners who are facing divorce in Georgia.
This is Dave Ward, from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
Divorce is a very, very stressful time. It brings up a lot of emotion and can be very, very difficult for people to deal with. Which is why one of the top ten mistakes that we see is, number eight, and that is failing to deal with stress appropriately.
There are any number of things that are stressful throughout the divorce process. To try and figure and list them all, this could be a three hour video, but fact is, that firstly, every part of the divorce process has, to some degree or another, some level of stress that's associated with it.
The people that are able to come out ahead, to make good decisions throughout the process are the people who are taking the time to make sure that they're handling their stress properly. For some people, that means exercise, whether that's running, going to the gym, swimming, any number of things. There are also groups that people can attend. Support groups, et cetera, that can help people when they're going through various stages because you're surrounding yourself with other people who understand what you're going through, that may have some shared experience that can help you get through a particular stage.
A little farther down the spectrum, sometimes, for whatever reason, we're not able to handle all of the stress by ourselves and sometimes we need to seek professional help. And when that's the case, I always encourage my clients to do this and I call this engaging and healthy self care.
If you need help, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to reach out for it. But when it comes to a divorce and dealing with the stress, not intending for any pun, but I can't stress hard enough how important it is to make sure that you take the steps necessary to see that you're handling your stress properly.
I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owners who are facing divorce in Georgia.
Divorce Lawyer Gwinnett County | Should You Leave The Marital Home When Facing Divorce? by David J. Ward, Esq.
This is Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I protect business owners who are facing divorce and this is the last in our series on the three most frequently asked questions that I get from people who are facing divorce in Georgia and the four questions that people should be asking.
The last question that people should be asking is, what type or types of experts might I need in order to prepare and present my case? And this is important to ask at the outset because anytime you’re going to be involved with an expert, there’s preparation that has to be done and considerations that have to be made. First and foremost, experts are usually very, very expensive. So knowing at the outset that you may need to have somebody in a particular discipline whether that be a forensic accountant or a certified divorce financial analyst or a child’s psychologist or any other numbers of experts that might be needed in your case, it’s important to know that these people may be needed so you can plan appropriately for the expenses that are going to be involved. It also helps tailor the type of information that you need to be gathering and putting together to be able to present to that expert so they could perform their analysis of whatever it is that is covered by their particular field.
One of the most common experts that I see, particularly in cases that involve business owners, are either forensic accountants or certified divorce financial analysts and both of these are experts are highly skilled in using all manner of financial documentation including tax returns in order to pinpoint irregularities in parties’ incomes, or in their expenses including things that are related to businesses and business income and expenses. They can be instrumental in discovering hidden assets as well as establishing evaluations for closely held corporations and businesses. The more complex the cases - whether that’s due to a high network or the involvement of one or more business - the more likely it is that an expert of this type is probably going to be needed in your case. So knowing what type or types of experts you’re going to need is an essential part in preparing for a divorce.
Well we’ve just wrapped up our series on the three most frequently asked questions that I get from people who are facing a divorce as well as the four questions that people should be asking. If you’ve reached this point in the series then clearly there is something going on and I always tell people if you’re faced with the possibility of divorce, the first thing you should look to do is go and speak with an attorney. So if you’re facing the prospect of a divorce and you’d like to know how to start getting prepared, come in and we’ll conduct our real case analysis for you. We will review all of the facts of your case. We’re going to evaluate the legal issues that are present in your case, analyze the strategies that are available to you and give you a list of next steps that you can be working on as you start moving forward in the process. So contact us today at the number below.
I’m David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I protect the business owner who’s facing divorce.
Divorce Lawyer Gwinnett County | How Quickly Can I Get Divorced in Georgia? by David J. Ward, Esq.
Hi I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect business owners facing divorce.
The fourth thing that you can do in order to help prepare for divorce is create a family balance sheet. Initially it will be blank. There are a number of things that have to occur over the course of a divorce. One of the more significant things is being able to tally up and understand all the assets and the liabilities that are part of the marriage. To understand how and where the things are going to be divided, you will be making sure that you fill out a well detailed balance sheet - this will do a number of things.
First, having that done at the outset will help to increase the accuracy of it. Sometimes as time goes by, particularly if our spouse just cuts us off from certain things, we may forget those things are there. So by making sure that we're able to get to those things right at the outset and write them down will help to ensure that things don't get overlooked through the settlement negotiation process, and if necessary through the trial process. Again, this is the fourth thing that you can be doing in order to protect yourself and help prepare for a divorce.
My name is David Ward and I help protect the small business owner facing divorce.
This is David Ward of the Ward Law Firm and we protect business owner facing divorce.
Congratulations on taking the time to schedule your real case analysis. While you're getting ready to come in so we can sit down there are a couple of things that I'm going to ask you to do so that way we are prepared when we sit down and we can formulate the best strategy for you.
The first thing I'd like to do when you come into the office is make sure if you have any other legal documents that are related to your marriage - such as a prenuptial agreement or a postnuptial agreement please bring those with you. That way we can make sure that we understand the impact that those things may have on your case. Also, if you would bring just some basic current financial information with you, that's also going to be very helpful in establishing what certain other things are going to need to be addressed. So having a good understanding of that is going to make a difference in our ability to help you prepare in moving forward. We look forward to seeing you. Thank you for taking the time to schedule your real case analysis.
I'm David Ward with the Ward Law Firm and we help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
I’m Dave Ward of the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who’s facing divorce.
In this series, we’ve been talking about the three most frequently asked questions that I get, and we’ll go on to discuss the four questions that you should be asking whenever you speak to a divorce attorney.
We are on question number three of our frequently most asked questions. That question is, what can I do to prevent my spouse from taking retaliatory actions against me throughout the divorce process?
In order to answer that question, I’m going to discuss one of the things that often happens when a divorce case gets filed. In Georgia, when a divorce gets filed, most jurisdictions have what are referred to as standing orders. A standing order is an order that arises by operation of law upon the filing of a certain type of case. Most often, those orders are issued directly from the judges in the county in which the case has been filed. The one I talked about the most is Gwinnett County.
For example. Gwinnett County has something called mutual restraining orders and in those mutual restraining orders, there are a number of different types of retaliatory actions that the order specifically prohibits. For example, it specifically states that neither spouse can sell or otherwise destroy any assets. It says that neither spouse can change or cancel insurance without first getting the court’s permission. It states that neither spouse can take any minor children outside of the jurisdiction of the court without first getting the court’s permission. These are some of the things that happen most frequently. Included in that list is also that people can’t cancel utilities which again happens all too often.
Now the important thing to understand about mutual restraining orders is an order is for all intents and purposes this legal obligation somebody has to follow but it appears as just a normal piece of paper and there’s not a piece of paper that’s going to prevent somebody from doing something if they actually are intent on doing it. However, because we have these standing orders, what that does is allow the court to use its contempt powers to address the situation.
The contempt powers of a court are very, very broad and usually come into play when somebody violates a court’s order. For example, if somebody violated one of these mutual restraining orders by say, cancelling somebody’s health insurance, the court would then be in the position to hold them in contempt and could use anyone of a number of options it has at it’s disposal to address the situation - including the levying of fines, attorney’s fees and even incarceration of the person who is offending the order. So while the order itself won’t necessarily stop somebody from taking retaliatory action through the contempt powers of the court, it will make them very unhappy about the decision they made to do that. These are the things that courts do in order to try and prevent retaliatory actions from happening.
At this point, you’ve reached the end of our third video in the series and we’re wrapping up our three most frequently asked questions. If you have any questions about your case, our contact information is below. Give me a call and we’ll set up a time to sit down and do your real case analysis.
Again, I’m David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the small business owner in divorce.
We've been talking about a number of things that you can do in order to prepare for a divorce. The sixth thing that you can do is prepare a budget. Budgets are important in a divorce situation for a number of reasons.
First and foremost we talked about an income statement in our last video. The companion to that is knowing where your outflows are going, what the money is being spent on and the things that can become critically important at several stages throughout the divorce process including calculations related to child support. There are a number of expenditures that people are making over the course of any given month that can influence and sometimes significantly change the amount of child support that may be ordered in a particular case. It can also affect things like alimony. It can affect things like temporary support if those are issues that are before the court.
So making sure that you understand not only where your income is coming from, but having a budget laid out to know where your money is going and what your actual monetary needs are will help place you in the best position possible to protect yourself and the things that are important to you throughout the divorce process.
My name is David Ward and I help protect the small business owner facing divorce.
I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owners facing divorce.
There are a number of things that we can do in preparing for divorce. The fifth thing that I recommend people do is that you prepare an income statement. Now, many of us particularly entrepreneurs are very used to producing an income statement for their business, very few people think about producing one for themselves.
But when you're faced with a divorce situation the amount of income that is coming into their household and where those things are coming from can become critically important in determining a number of issues throughout the course of divorce process.
Some of those include, if alimony is an issue, that's going to be a significant thing, if child support is an issue, that's going to be a significant thing. And believe it or not income can be critically important when you're looking at property settlements. So being able to have a detailed accounting of where your income is coming from, can be critically important to making sure that you're in the best position to get the best result possible for you.
My name is David Ward and I help protect the small business owner facing divorce.
Hi, I’m David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner facing divorce.
We’ve been talking about things that you can do to prepare for divorce in this series of videos and the seventh thing that you can do is gather financial documents and copy them. This can be critically important in preparing for a divorce and the reason we’ll make a lot of sense intuitively and that is a divorce is a lawsuit like any other and when a lawsuit is concerned, evidence rules.
You have to be able to prove things. It’s not enough to simply know them and few things can prove the existence of assets that’s all those kinds of things like a bank statement or a credit card statement or any other sort of financial documentation. A lot of us think about that when it comes for business, we save those things but a lot of us don’t necessarily think about that for our own personal stuff and it’s important for both of them.
I just want to tell you a quick story about why this can be so important. I had a client and we’re going to call her Jennifer. Jennifer and her husband started a business. Both of them worked in the business and built it up to a business that was generating substantial income. Well, they had split up and decided to file for a divorce and during the early stages of divorce process, Jennifer’s husband came to her and said he need certain documents related to the business having to do with the finances - the income, invoicing, all those types of things and because Jennifer did not want to disrupt the business - she handed those documents over. Jennifer’s mistake was she didn’t copy them. She didn’t keep a copy of those for herself and as a result, there were significant income during the course of the divorce that we weren’t able to prove because her husband at that point, simply stated that a lot of people would do this that those statements didn’t exist - that those invoices weren’t there and we had no way of countering that because we didn’t have copies of those documents for ourselves before Jennifer turned those over. This can be a critical thing in preparing for a divorce so if you’re facing a divorce, make sure you take the time to copy any financial documents that you have. If you’re not able to necessarily copy things or those things aren’t available, at least write down things like account numbers, banks, other institutions and things like that.
Again, this is a situation where evidence is king and having those documents is an irreplaceable asset when you’re trying to move through the divorce process and trying to get the best outcome possible for you.
I’m David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who’s facing divorce.
Hi I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner facing divorce.
We've been talking about a number of things that you can do to help prepare if you're facing a divorce. One of the things that you can do is make sure that you've established and are protecting your credit. This can be important for any number of reasons both related to divorce and completely unrelated. When it comes to a divorce situation there are going to be a number of things that are going to be happening throughout the process. There's going to be a lot of changes that are coming up in your life. For a lot of people, they've relied on their spouse or their spouse's credit to accomplish things that they might not otherwise been able to do. But as you see this is going to be coming to an end, it's important to make sure that you've set yourself up to be successful in facing the challenges that everybody faces just in ordinary everyday life and making sure that you've set up and have taken steps to protect your credit in making enormous difference not only through the divorce process but afterwards as well.
I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
Hi I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help business owners protect themselves when they are facing a divorce.
We've been talking about a number of things that you can be doing in order to prepare for divorce if that's something that you're facing. One of the more important things that you can do is inventory and protect important assets whether that's some important family heirloom that you received that can't be replaced. There is no substitute from having an inventory of those types of things if it becomes necessary to litigate things. It's not uncommon, unfortunately, for somebody to claim that something doesn't exist or they don't have it or for them to be more malicious and actually destroy things out. By making sure that you have sufficient evidence to establish that those things were there - that they do exist - can be invaluable in being able to do that. One of the best ways to do that is actually to simply walk around the house and take pictures of the things that are important to you. They always say a picture is worth a thousand words and they are right when it comes to this sort of thing. And a cellphone today has made it a very easy thing to do. So again this series is about doing what you can to help prepare yourself for a divorce, place yourself in the best position possible to get a greatest outcome for you - Making sure that you have a great inventory of important items is going to be critically important to that.
I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
Hi, I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect business owners who are facing divorce.
At this point in the video series we're at step number ten. My contact information will follow at the end. If you're still watching this video you probably are facing a serious situation. If we go back to our first recommendation - speaking to an attorney early on in the process - I want to let you know that I offer a free real case analysis where we sit down together, review the facts, and evaluate the legal strategies that are available to you. We'll analyze which ones are going to be the most effective in your case and create a list of next actions for you to take.
If you're at this point and you're facing a divorce give me a call and we can talk about what we can do to help place you in the best position possible.
Step number ten is to make sure that you're strict about access to your finances and your credit. It is not uncommon in a divorce situation for emotions run high - people are angry and even bitter. People will do things just to be spiteful and vindictive. One of the easiest things people can do to try and get back at somebody else is either run a tremendous amount of debt or spend down a bunch of assets or even transfer assets so the other party doesn't have access to them. You want to make sure that your situation is going to be protected from those things happening.
Courts have something called “standing orders” in which they say in no uncertain terms is either party allowed to do these things. But unfortunately those are just pieces of paper and parties can still do those things - even though they do come with heavy consequence due to the court orders. But better not to place yourself in that position. So, if you're facing a divorce and you're trying to prepare and put yourself in the best position possible make sure that you restrict access to your credit and make sure you restrict access to your financial assets.
I am David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who is facing a divorce.
I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
We've been talking in this series about the things that you can do to help place yourself in the best position possible if you're facing a divorce.
Number 11 on this list, making major financial commitments or changes. This is important for several reasons. First, whenever we're facing a divorce even under the best circumstances the emotions are running high and in my experience people cannot make the best decisions when their emotions are so high and their stress level is usually much more elevated from what it normally is.
By refraining from making those decisions you substantially reduce the chances that you might end up looking bad and regretting a decision that you made or a commitment that you made. There are also some ancillary issues that are more directly related to the divorce and that is the fact that if you start making substantial financial commitments and obligations or changes some of which may be dependent upon something that is being received or involved with your spouse as the divorce goes through and is ultimately finalized - it's going to raise the question of - are you still able to meet those obligations, or are you still able to deal with the changes that you've made. This is one of the things that can really place you behind the eight-ball as you're coming out of the divorce and it's one of those things that you don't necessarily know until the end of the case. I always recommend to people be very,very careful about making any substantial financial commitments or any substantial financial changes while you're going through the divorce process. In most cases those decisions can wait until it’s over.
I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who is facing a divorce.
Hi I'm Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I protect business owners who are facing divorce.
The 12th step in making sure that you're going to place yourself from the best position possible when you're going through the divorce process is by making sure that you're engaged in healthy self-care that can take any number of forms. Divorce under the best circumstances is extremely stressful by making sure you're engaged in healthy self-care, you're going to help yourself keep from being burned out and it also going to allow you to make better decisions going forward.
Simple things like making sure that you're drinking water, eating properly. If you are a runner, that you're running, doing your exercise, these types of things can go a very long way in helping you deal with the stress and anxiety that normally accompany a situation like this. For other people, some of those stresses can be something that simple exercise and diet can't really fix and for those folks, there are people that you can go and that you can talk to. There are groups that you can involve yourself in where other people are going through a similar situations and are sharing in the same struggles that he can be struggling with. So by making sure that you engage in healthy self-care, you're going to help manage the stress of the situation which is going to allow you to make better decisions and help you come out ahead of where you might otherwise be.
So step number 12, healthy self-care. You've been watching our 12-step series on how to prepare if you're facing a divorce. At this point, if you're still watching the videos and you haven't seen some of the earlier videos, click on the link below and make sure you go through all of them. If you've watched all of them, you have reached this point, I want to congratulate you because you've made a smart decision in taking the first step anybody should take when they're facing a divorce and that is educating themselves.
I want to congratulate you on that good decision. If you are facing a divorce and you have reached this point in time, give me a call. We can sit down and perform our real case analysis for you where we're going to go, we're going to review all the facts, we're going to evaluate the legal issues that you're facing, we're going to analyze the strategies available to you and we're going to come up with a list of next steps in order to help you move forward with the process.
I'm David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce.
Hi, I’m Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect business owners who are facing divorce.
Facing a divorce is never an easy thing to do for anybody. But there are things that you can do in order to better prepare yourself for what’s to come through the divorce process. And the first thing that you should do is speak with an attorney.
Speaking with an attorney at the outset rather than waiting to some further point down the process can yield a number of benefits. Frequently, some that are unanticipated at the time the conversation occurs.
I’d like to tell you a story about a client of mine, that we’re gonna call Jim. Jim was married to a woman who was stationed overseas as part of the US army. But one day Jim got that call that nobody wants to get and she told him, “I don’t think this marriage is working out. I want a divorce.” As hard and surprising it was to have received that call, what happened next was even more surprising. She stopped sending any sort of support payment to help the household. Jim and his wife had two small boys. And, while Jim had a good job, he was dependent on the income that his wife was sending back to help support the family and make sure that the boys were taken care of in the manner that they needed to be. So, Jim was very concerned when he came to me, and what I was able to discuss with him in that initial consultation was that, the army and most of the armed services have regulations that require soldiers and sailors to support their family members. And I was able to tell Jim what he needed to do to go and get the assistance of his wife’s chain of command, in order to compel her to immediately and continue supporting the family throughout the entire divorce process.
So, this is just one example of things that can happen during a consultation. Jim didn’t expect that to be the case. He didn’t come with any anticipation that there was something that could be remedied so quickly.
So, being able to sit down and have that conversation immediately changed the game for Jim because he no longer had to worry about whether or not he was gonna be able to support the boys throughout this process.
This is just one of the benefits that comes from speaking to an attorney at the outset rather than waiting till some point later down the line. Again, my name is Dave Ward and I help small business owners facing divorce.
Hi, I'm Dave Ward from The Ward Law Firm, and I help protect business owners facing divorce. In this series we're covering things that you can do in order to prepare for divorce, and the second thing that you can do is keep a notebook or a diary.
The reason why this is important, well let me ask you a question, "What did you have for breakfast on January 5th of this year?" My guess is you probably don't remember. And the truth is most of us are not going to be able to remember all the things that we're exposed to over the course of any given period of time. Now, a lot of people will say, "Well Dave that's kind of a trivial thing," you know surely I will remember something that's important is related to my divorce.
But, let me ask you, have you ever say, been at work and had to remember a password, and go from one room to the next only to arrive at that room and forget some portion of what that password was? These are the things that happen to all of us all the time, and even though we're talking about a relatively short period of time and something that's reasonably important to do, we still have those gaps in memory. And this is the kind of thing that happens to everybody, regardless of how smart you are.
In fact, the smarter you are the more vulnerable you're going to be too this sort of thing, because people who are smart tend to rely too heavily on their ability to remember things. Having a well kept diary can make re-creating a timeline much, much simpler than it would be without doing that. It also helps to keep everything straight with regard to significant events that have occurred either before, during the filing of the divorce, and while the divorce is going on.
Some of the things that should be written down in diary include what happened, in other words what was the event, you should include a brief description of whatever that event was, and then you should also write down any witnesses that were present at that time.
By having that information you can take the situation, that may otherwise have gotten overlooked or forgotten in the preparation of the actual case, and make sure that you're going to have that information available and usable by your attorney when the time comes to present the case.
This is just one of the things that you need to do in order to prepare for a divorce. Again, my name is Dave Ward and I help protect the small business owner facing divorce.
The first one that I hear most often is, "Is Georgia a fault or no-fault divorce State?" And the answer is both.
In Georgia there are thirteen independent grounds that are recognized for divorce, 12 of those grounds are considered to be fault grounds.
The first ground recognized by Georgia is called the intermarriage by persons within the prohibited degrees of affinity.
The second has to do with the mental incapacity of one of the parties at the time that the marriage occurred and this really impart goes to the validity of the marriage because in order to form the marital quote on quote contract both parties have to be capable of making sound decisions about that.
The third round recognized and it's pretty self-explanatory is impotency at the time of marriage. Before it has to do with forced Menace, duress or fraud in obtaining the marriage and again these are things that can go to the actual validity of the marriage but what this has to do with his taking somebody and compelling them to do something that they otherwise would not have done.
The fifth ground is pregnancy of the wife by a man other than the husband at the time of the marriage, unknown by the husband.
The sixth ground is one of the ones most commonly thought of by people and that's adultery by either of the parties after the marriage has occurred and number seven is desertion by either of the parties for a term of one year or more. What's important to know about both number six and number seven, is there are some specific consequences that relate to alimony, if either one of these is determined to be the cause of the dissolution of the marriage, for example if one party commits adultery and that is determined to be the cause for the dissolution of the marriage that party cannot as a matter of law get alimony.
The eighth grounds for divorce is the conviction of either party for an offense involving moral turpitude and under which he or she is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of two years or more. This often leads the question of what is an offense involving moral turpitude and generally without getting too specific that has to do with crimes that involve demonstrations of poor character.
The ninth and this is actually also related to the twelfth is Habitual intoxication by one of the parties.
Number ten is cruel treatment by one of the parties and cruel treatment as defined by the law is treatment that either involves the willful infliction of pain or bodily or mental injury upon the other party whose filing asserting that has a ground, provided such reasonably justifies an apprehension of danger to life, limb or health. Those are read extremely broadly by the court and in fact it's very common for a situation where somebody search the ground of adultery to also assert cruel treatment because that is considered mental cruelty. Particularly if the other parties is advertising to the other spouse that they are in the process of committing adultery or have committed it etc.
Number eleven is incurable mental illness and one very interesting thing about this is unlike virtually every other type of ground to assert for divorce, when asserting a around for incurable mental illness, it is often decided by the court that you never less have to continue to support that person throughout their life.
Number twelve as I said was related to number nine and number twelve is the habitual drug addiction by one of the parties. Those are what are considered to be fault the grounds for divorce in Georgia and thirteenth and this the no fault one and as a practical matter the one that is usually the basis for almost all of the divorce is that are granted in Georgia today and that is that the marriage is irretrievably broken with no hope of reconciliation .
Again, I'm David Ward from the Ward law firm and I help protect the small business owner in divorce.
Hi, I am Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect business owners facing divorce. The third thing that we need to do when we are facing a divorce is be conscious of the fact that our spouse may end up taking and moving money from joint accounts and leaving you without any access to any of the funds that have been accumulated over the course of the marriage.
In the hopes of reducing your ability to defend yourself throughout the course of a divorce. One of the things that you can do in order to combat that situation is start and fund a savings account. Some of refer to that as sort of a war chest.
The whole goal of having that is to make sure that you have the financial backing that may be needed in order to pursue your case aggressively in the best manner possible.
Often times the issues that are involved in a divorce are not necessarily known at the outset, and new ones come up all the time that are completely unexpected. And sometimes those require investigators. Some of the require the use of experts. Some of them require any number of things that having the correct amount of funding available to you is going to be an essential part of making you can take advantage of those opportunities.
So by starting your own savings account and funding it properly will help to ensure that when the time comes you have the resources that you need in order to aggressively protect your position and your case. Again my name is David Ward and I help protect the small business owner facing divorce.
Hi, I am Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm, and I protect business owners who are facing divorce. In the series we been talking about the three frequently most asked questions that I get from people who are facing a divorce. We are going to shift gears a little bit now and talk about the four questions that you should be asking.
Question number one that you should be asking is: What sort of information should I be gathering? A divorce is a lawsuit, it's just a particular kind kind of lawsuit. And like any other lawsuit if the case goes to trial or you have a hearing you are going to be required to prove your case. In order to do this you are going to need evidence.
Most often, the best evidence comes in the form of either pictures or the subject of this question and that is documentation. There is no way to list every conceivable document that you may need. There are some that are commonly to all divorce cases.
Number one would be a copy of any domestic contracts. What I mean by that is if you have either a prenuptial agreement or a postnuptial agreement, you are going to want to have those documents. Copies of your last couple of years of income tax returns, bank statements for the last couple of years are also going to be extremely helpful to determine spending patterns, etc. That is particularity important if you are worried about money being suddenly moved or disappearing from the accounts without any reasonable explanation for why those changes are occurring. The same with investment account statements and retirement account statements. Some other statements that are also important are mortgage statements; if you have car loans or credit cards, having those statements or virtually any type of loan agreement.
And of course, for business owners, keeping business records such as invoices, account statements, balance sheets, incoming cash flow statements. All the--sort of--documentation that you would normally save as a business owner.
Again, finally what we mentioned earlier: photographs that are related to the divorce. For most of these statements I usually suggest that people start by trying to gather at least the last three years worth of statements. With many companies moving to electronic statements it has become a whole lot easier to obtain these documents, however it is important to remember that passwords can be changed by your spouse which is why i usually suggest printing hard copies and putting them in a safe place where your spouse is not going to find them.
Again I am David Ward from The Ward Law Firm and I protect business owners who are facing divorce.
This is Dave Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the business owner who's facing divorce. In this series we are talking about the three questions I am asked most frequently as well as the four questions that people should be asking when they sit down with an Attorney. Right now we are on question number 2. Question number 2 is; What is the difference between a divorce and an annulment?
Frequently when people contact my office, I first ask questions about whether or not they can get an annulment because there is a perception that an annulment is better than a divorce. In some respects, it can be usually for religious reasons.
The difference between divorce and an annulment has to do with what it is the court is actually deciding. In the case of the divorce, the court is ruling that a valid marriage is going to be dissolved and the parties are g to be treated as though they are no longer bound by the bonds of marriage. So that is a divorce.
An annulment, by contrast, is a determination by the court that a divorce is not necessary because the marriage itself never actually existed. In other words, it was void right from the beginning. Some of the grounds for that we talked about a little bit in our first video because there can be grounds for both divorce or an annulment.
The example would be a marriage that is procured through fraud upon one of the parties. In that case fraud as a general rule is a defense in a case that involves a contract in marriage is treated by law a contract between the two parties. So that can actually be one of the grounds to cert for an annulment if that's what it is you are choosing to seek. As a practical matter, it is interesting to note that Georgia like virtually all other states, does not favor annulments and the court is going to view a request for an annulment with a very, very, skeptical eye. There are reasons for that and there are actually circumstances where you cannot get an annulment even if you otherwise qualify.
An example of that is if children were born during the course of the period of time that the parties thought that they were married, even it turns that marriage was void for some technical reason or procured through fraud, etc the state of Georgia is not going to allow that to be treated as an annulment. They are going to require that you go through the divorce process.
That is some of the differences. There are many, many more differences between a divorce and an annulment. But the big overarching one has to do with what the courts deciding that is are we dissolving an otherwise valid marriage or are we making a deceleration that no marriage actually ever actually existed.
Again I am David Ward from the Ward Law Firm and I help protect the small business owner in divorce.