by Christopher McDonough | Jul 18, 2025 | Family Law
The pressure to settle family law cases is intense. We’ve all seen judges lecture clients about how the best custody schedules are decided by the parents rather than the children, and how litigating over property and support will drain the family estate to the dregs.... 
by Christopher McDonough | Nov 21, 2023 | Property
California law uses two formulas to calculate the community property interest which accumulates during a marriage in a separate property business. The first, Pereira v. Pereira (1909) 156 Cal. 1, dealt with a saloon and cigar business. The analysis the court used is... 
by Christopher McDonough | Mar 13, 2023 | Custody & Children, Marriage
Your brand-new client forwards you an e-mail. It contains a Request for Order from their ex-spouse, requesting modification of custody. On the phone, they tell you, “I don’t understand! We had a judgment on child custody two years ago! How can they be doing this?”... by Christopher McDonough | Sep 29, 2021 | Marriage
Last month, a judge in Kentucky made a decision unusual enough to be reported in legal news sites – he denied a divorce, not on procedural grounds, but because the marriage between the couple was not actually “irretrievably broken.” He cited the unusual... by Christopher McDonough | Sep 20, 2021 | Custody & Children
Abducting a child is a crime in California; we all understand that, but here is a more-difficult question: “Can a parent, whose parental rights have not been terminated, be guilty of abducting her/his own child, even if there be no child custody orders in effect?” The...
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