Van Camp: A Historical Perspective

Van Camp: A Historical Perspective

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...
Custody and Final Judgments

Custody and Final Judgments

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?”...

Irreconcilable differences

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...

Abduction

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...

Knapp v. Ginsberg

In anticipation of marriage some parties do not feel the need to discuss in detail a premarital agreement. At times it could feel that discussing in detail the terms for a premarital agreement can deromanticize the upcoming nuptials. The validity of a premarital...