Helping Families Solve Their Legal Issues!

Emerald City Legal Services performs a wide variety of family law services, including: 

Prenuptial Agreements:  

The happiest contract you will ever make! Prenups just make sense. Especially when prepared at the same time as a Will and Living Will, a prenup helps you and your fiancé sort out what will happen if you ultimately don’t work out. Of course nobody wants to think this way, but particularly if you love someone who has more assets than you, getting a well drafted prenup is really a gift that you give your fiancé by showing them that you consider their feelings and worries. Because we all know that in the back of everyone’s mind before they get married, is a worry about what will happen if the relationship ultimately doesn’t work out.  But a good prenup solves that.

            Look at it another way... Since the numbers are that roughly half of all marriages end in divorce, that number is high enough that all of us should at least think about the possibility that it could happen to us; however unlikely we think it might be. An analogy might be that divorce is like getting in a car-accident, its not necessarily going to happen to us, and there are some things we can do to avoid it, but it is possible, and we all know someone who it has happened to.

Well if you love someone enough to marry them, you probably would like to have a positive relationship with them for the rest of your life, even if your romantic relationship doesn’t work out. A good prenup helps make that possible. By spelling out who gets what in the event you divorce, and what would be the procedure of solving problems, you take things off the table that you could wind up fighting over if the worse happens. And everything that doesn’t become a point of disagreement is something that doesn’t contribute to anger and resentment if you break up. In short, a prenup gives everyone peace of mind, especially when it is combined with good Wills and Living Wills for both of you. So if you are going to get married, congratulations, and call or email me to get a good prenup, it really does resolve issues and make it easier to start your life together. As always our initial conversation is free. Again Congratulations on your engagement!  

Divorce:

General Patton said “War is Hell”, but he never divorced… I’m divorced so I know what it is like. But I was lucky. My ex-wife and I had an ‘amicable’ divorce and are still friends. But it was still brutal. The fact is that after loving each other and sharing a life, breaking up is very painful. Emotions run high, every mistake you’ve ever made is magnified, insults are traded, and nobody is happy. And unfortunately so many couples break down into nasty fights that poison any possibility of a positive relationship between them, and they screw up their kids. This isn’t right.

I don’t do nasty divorces. I do mediated divorces, and divorces where the parties don’t hate each other and can still talk to each other with respect even if they are angry. I think the attorneys who let their clients sink to the lowest common denominator of rage are irresponsible, and they do their clients a disservice.

It is possible to have a ‘good’ divorce. And if you have kids, both parties have a responsibility to try to be reasonable to the other person, first because it’s the right thing to do, and second, because the court will consider the actions and conduct of the parents when determining residential placement. Bottom line; act like a jerk, and it will affect your relationship with your kids, and everyone will know you’re a jerk…  

I’m a trained mediator (see my mediation page), having negotiated settlements in a wide variety of issues including relationships. I have the skills to help you and your soon-to-be-ex try to find mutual solutions to your problems. I think that the only way to go on with your lives is to try to be considerate of the person you loved, and focus on the future rather than dwell in the past and all the mistakes that were made.

I also can help you with other issues, like modifications of parenting plans, and negotiating and drafting a pre-marital agreement (prenup) for when you are lucky enough to find somebody else who loves you! Call or email me for a free conversation to talk about your issues.

Domestic Partnerships:

Recently Washington approved a domestic partnership registry. This is an important right for elderly couples with one partner over 62, and for same-sex partnerships. The domestic partnership extends to domestic partners some of the most important rights married couples have, such as the ability to make medical care decisions for a sick partner, to visit a partner in the hospital, and to inherit property intestate (without a will).

To register for a domestic partnership a couple must:

• Share a common residence,
• Be at least 18 years of age,
• Not be married to another person or in a domestic partnership with anyone else,
• Be capable of consenting to the relationship,
• Not be blood relations, and
• Be either members of the same sex or if, in a heterosexual partnership, have one individual be at least 62 years of age.