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How not to get divorced -- that type of advice is strange coming from a Dallas Divorce Lawyer.  But, really I'd love nothing more than to be out of business and into some other line of work, all because people stayed married.  Marriage is a great thing if you are with the right person.  Unfortunately, divorce is necessary in many circumstances.  But, I seriously doubt that anyone enters marriage with the idea that they want to get divorced.  So, for those out there trying to hold it together, here's some advice:

"February 15 is one of the busiest days in a divorce lawyer's calendar," says Dan Couvrette, CEO & Publisher of Divorce Magazine and www.DivorceMagazine.com. "Maybe some of these tips will help improve our readers' current relationships to the point where they're willing to try to work things out -- or perhaps the tips will help ensure that their future relationships will be happy and fulfilling."

1. Make time to connect lovingly with your spouse every day.

A couple can significantly improve their chances of marital success by devoting as little as 15 minutes a day exclusively to each other. For instance, choose to go to bed a little earlier and wake up a little earlier, and spend the extra time in bed cuddling, making love, and reaffirming your love for each other. Take time every day to have meaningful conversations with each other; to listen with the same intensity as when you were dating; to touch, hug, and show affection; to tell each other how you feel about your marriage; and to talk about your goals for the marriage and your lives.

2. Compliment your spouse regularly -- both in private and in front of others.

Even if your partner seems embarrassed or shrugs it off at first, the glow from sincere praise lasts a long time.

3. Love your spouse in the way he/she wants to be loved.
 

We often make the mistake of assuming that the things that touch our hearts the most deeply will affect our partner in the same way. For instance, you may think red roses are the perfect Valentine's Day gift, but to your spouse, they represent a waste of money and an allergy attack. If you don't already know, find out what your spouse yearns for, and then deliver it with love -- and no comments about how "stupid" it is to want a cordless drill/a picnic on the living room floor/a tuna casserole, etc. Remember: the best gift is something your spouse wants -- not merely something you want him/her to have.

4. Take care of your appearance.
 

Look your best for your spouse: he/she deserves it. Lose the ratty sweat pants or frayed sweater he/she hates so much; you can find other comfortable clothing that aren't a complete turn-off for your partner. This also means taking care of your health .

5. Remain faithful.

Dr. Finnegan Alford-Cooper studied 576 couples who had been married for 50 years or more; she released her findings in a book entitled For Keeps: Marriages that Last a Lifetime. In her study, she found that 95% of the spouses agreed that fidelity was essential to a successful marriage, and 94% agreed or strongly agreed that marriage is a long-term commitment to one person. And these "lifers" weren't making the best of a bad lot: a whopping 90% of the couples she surveyed said that they were happily married after 50+ years.

6. Do things together.

Another common factor of long-term happy marriages is that the spouses regularly do things together that they find fun and exciting. Whether that's ballroom dancing, bowling, playing cards, SCUBA diving, or skiing, participate in at least one activity that you both enjoy every week. If you have kids, make sure at least half of these activities are for you and your spouse only.

7. Spend time apart.
 

You take a pottery course while your spouse plays hockey; you play bridge and your partner collects stamps. You don't have to love everything your partner loves, but you do have to allow him/her the freedom to pursue cherished hobbies. An added bonus is that separate interests can generate interest between you.

8. Be friends with your partner.

According to John Gottman -- a psychology professor who claims his research will predict with 91% accuracy whether a couple will stay together -- the key to marital happiness and success is friendship. Some of the most important aspects of this type of friendship are knowing each other intimately, demonstrating affection and respect for each other on a daily basis, and genuinely enjoying each other's company. Gottman based his findings on 25 years of marital research, which he presented in his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

9. The Terms of Endearment.

Top Los Angeles divorce attorney Stacy D. Phillips says flowers, candy, cards, and gifts are all wonderful tokens of love on Valentine's Day, but if you really want your romance to last, you must practice some marriage-saving steps. She advises couples to spell out the basics of their relationship in a yearly contract -- or at least to clarify them. "Most disputes that break up marriages are over sex and money," she says. "Don't let surprises lead to trouble. Marriage is like any other contract: its terms and conditions must be reviewed and updated. Right before an anniversary is a perfect time, and Valentine's Day reminds you to be flexible and that you have to give to receive."

10. Say "I love you" every day.

This is especially important when you're not feeling the sensation of love; at these times, you have to actively generate it. Saying those three little words, and performing loving gestures, will warm both your and your spouse's hearts.
 

Hat tip to Divorce Magazine for the idea for this article. 

This article is featured on avvo.com:  Valentine's Day Tips

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O'Neil Anderson has been featured in Dallas Morning News' Neighbor's Go publication.  See the story here:  The May Firm Expands to Become O'Neil Anderson.

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What You Post on Facebook Can Harm your Dallas Divorce case!

According to www.insidefacebook.com, Facebook is growing in every age/gender demographic, with the fastest growing segment: Women over 55, up 175.3% in the last 120 days (as of February 2, 2009).  Read the post here.  While the fastest growing age group by total users is still 26-34, the number of women over 55 on Facebook grew by an astounding 175.3% since the end of September. Their male counterparts, however, weren’t able to keep up – growing by only 137.8%. The number of women over 55 on Facebook almost double the number of men over 55 on Facebook today.

That being said, people can't resist what they post on Facebook.  Consider this article from CBS News about the effects of what some people have posted:

Online hangouts like Facebook and MySpace have offered crime-solving help to detectives and become a resource for employers vetting job applicants. Now the sites are proving fruitful for prosecutors, who have used damaging Internet photos of defendants to cast doubt on their character during sentencing hearings and argue for harsher punishment.

"Social networking sites are just another way that people say things or do things that come back and haunt them," said Phil Malone, director of the cyberlaw clinic at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "The things that people say online or leave online are pretty permanent."

The pictures, when shown at sentencing, not only embarrass defendants but also can make it harder for them to convince a judge that they're remorseful or that their drunken behavior was an aberration. (Of course, the sites are also valuable for defense lawyers looking to dig up dirt to undercut the credibility of a star prosecution witness.)

Prosecutors do not appear to be scouring networking sites while preparing for every sentencing, even though telling photos of criminal defendants are sometimes available in plain sight and accessible under a person's real name. But in cases where they've had reason to suspect incriminating pictures online, or have been tipped off to a particular person's MySpace or Facebook page, the sites have yielded critical character evidence.

"It's not possible to do it in every case," said Darryl Perlin, a senior prosecutor in Santa Barbara County, Calif. "But certain cases, it does become relevant."

Perlin said he was willing to recommend probation for Lara Buys for a 2006 drunken driving crash that killed her passenger — until he thought to check her MySpace page while preparing for sentencing.

The page featured photos of Buys — taken after the crash but before sentencing — holding a glass of wine as well as joking comments about drinking. Perlin used the photos to argue for a jail sentence instead of probation, and Buys, then 22, got two years in prison.

"Pending sentencing, you should be going to (Alcoholics Anonymous), you should be in therapy, you should be in a program to learn to deal with drinking and driving," Perlin said. "She was doing nothing other than having a good old time."

Santa Barbara defense lawyer Steve Balash said the day he met his client Jessica Binkerd, a recent college graduate charged with a fatal drunken driving crash, he asked if she had a MySpace page. When she said yes, he told her to take it down because he figured it might have pictures that cast her in a bad light.

But she didn't remove the page. And right before Binkerd was sentenced in January 2007, the attorney said he was "blindsided" by a presentencing report from prosecutors that featured photos posted on MySpace after the crash.

One showed Binkerd holding a beer bottle. Others had her wearing a shirt advertising tequila and a belt bearing plastic shot glasses.

Binkerd wasn't doing anything illegal, but Balash said the photos hurt her anyway. She was given more than five years in prison, though the sentence was later shortened for unrelated reasons.

"When you take those pictures like that, it's a hell of an impact," he said.
 

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Pet Custody Dispute Leads to Mounting Legal Bills

Legal bills in a custody dispute involving a couple’s pet dog have topped $40,000, according to media reports. The mounting attorneys’ fees come after a landmark decision by a Pennsylvania appellate court that held a trial judge should have weighed the subjective value of the pug in determining custody and compensation for the couple. An attorney for one of the parties conceded that the protracted dispute could be a slippery slope for the legal community. Martha Neil, American Bar Association Journal 07/30/2009
 

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Divorce Linked to Chronic Illness, Study Finds

The toll of divorce on a spouse’s health may be more than emotional, a new study has concluded. According to the study, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, persons who were divorced reported more chronic health problems than those who remained married or were never married. Data for the national study were gathered from nearly 9,000 men and women in their 50s and early 60s.

While this does not mean that people should stay married at all costs, it does show that marital history is an important indicator of health, and that the newly single need to be especially vigilant about stress management and exercise, even if they remarry.

The health benefits of marriage, documented by a wealth of research, appear to stem from several factors. Married people tend to be better off financially and can share in a spouse’s employer health benefits. And wives, in particular, act as gatekeepers for a husband’s health, scheduling appointments and noticing changes that may signal a health problem. Spouses can offer logistical support, like taking care of children while a partner exercises or shuttling a partner to and from the doctor’s office.

Over all, men and women who had experienced divorce or the death of a spouse reported about 20 percent more chronic health problems like heart disease, diabetes and cancer, compared with those who had been continuously married. Previously married people were also more likely to have mobility problems, like difficulty climbing stairs or walking a meaningful distance.

While remarrying led to some improvement in health, the study showed that most married people who became single never fully recovered from the physical declines associated with marital loss. Compared with those who had been continuously married, people in second marriages had 12 percent more chronic health problems and 19 percent more mobility problems. A second marriage did appear to heal emotional wounds: remarried people had only slightly more depressive symptoms than those continuously married.

Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times 08/03/2009
Read Article: The New York Times
 

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15. “Ah yes, divorce…from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.” - Robin Williams

14. “The difference between a divorce and a legal separation is that a legal separation gives a husband time to hide his money.” - Johnny Carson

13. “The only time my wife and I had a simultaneous orgasm was when the judge signed the divorce papers.” - Woody Allen

12. “I’m an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house.” - Zsa Zsa Gabor

11. “To get over my divorce, I got a prescription to live at the Playboy mansion for a while.” - James Caan

10. “I’d marry again if I found a man who had $15 million and would sign over half of it to me before the marriage and guarantee he’d be dead in a year.” - Bette Davis

9. “She cried - and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.” - Tommy Manville

8. “I can’t get divorced because I’m a Catholic. Catholics don’t get divorced. They stay together through anger and hatred and festering misery, just like God intended.” - Lenny Clarke

7. “I look a divorce this way: it’s better to have loved and lost, then to live with that bitch for the rest of my life.” - Steve McGrew

6. “Marriage isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Let me tell you, honestly. Marriage is probably the chief cause of divorce.” - Larry Gelbart

5. “Divorce sucks. Let me tell you, after five years of marriage, it is devastating to have the person with the good credit move out.” - Rich Vos

4. “Workaholicism is such a tough addiction to get over. I had to divorce my wife because she was an enabler.” - Dave Mordal

3. “What happened? Satan was busy?” - Sam Kinison on finding out his wife had hired lawyer Marvin Mitchelson to represent her in her divorce case against him.

2. “I can’t take his genius any more.” - Rita Hayworth on why she divorced Orson Welles

1. “You know why divorces are so expensive? Because they’re worth it.” - Willie Nelson
 

The 15 Funniest Quotes About Divorce
Darndivorce.com <-- I love this site!

Thank you to Whip It Out Comedy for their hilarious collection of divorce quotes.

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Thanks to Bruce Bain of Tyler for the referral to this article.  Lesson to be learned here for lawyers and litigants on Facebook... don't mention anything specific about any of your cases online.  Facebook is no different than a party, just a cyberspace social situation.  You wouldn't discuss the specifics of a case with a judge at a party.  Why would you post it on Facebook???

Judge Reprimanded for Friending Lawyer and Googling Litigant

A North Carolina judge has been reprimanded for “friending” a lawyer in a pending case, posting and reading messages about the litigation, and accessing the website of the opposing party.

Judge B. Carlton Terry Jr. and lawyer Charles Shieck both posted messages about the child custody and support case heard last September, the Lexington Dispatch reports. Terry also accessed the website of the opposing litigant and cited a poem she had posted there, according to the April 1 public reprimand (PDF) by the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission.

The opinion says Terry and Shieck first discussed Facebook in chambers in the presence of the opposing lawyer in the case, Jessie Conley, who said she didn’t know what Facebook was and didn’t have time for it. After the discussion, Terry and Shieck friended each other. Shieck later posted a Facebook reference to the issue of whether his client had had an affair, saying “How do I prove a negative?” according to the opinion. Shieck also wrote, “I have a wise judge.”

Terry told Conley about Shieck’s posts the day after he read them. The same day during court proceedings he referenced the poem he found and posted a Facebook message that the case was in its last day of trial. After the hearing concluded, Terry disclosed to both parties that he had visited the website of Conley’s client, where he found the poem, and then disqualified himself at the request of Conley.

Terry told investigators the poem had suggested that Conley’s client was not as bitter as he first thought and had given him hope for the litigants’ children. He also cooperated in the investigation, the opinion says.

The opinion says the ex parte communications and the independent gathering of information indicated a disregard of the principles of judicial conduct.
 

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Supreme Court backs judges' recusals in big donors' cases

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that judges must step aside in cases involving their large political contributors, prompting renewed calls for Texas to change a system in which judges raise money to run in partisan elections. Experts and lawmakers said the decision, which was narrowly drawn and did not set a standard for what is impermissible influence, might not force immediate change in Texas, where contributions to judges are limited. But advocates of reform, including Texas Supreme Court Justice Wallace Jefferson, said they hoped it would focus the debate on how to improve the system.

The 5-4 ruling in a West Virginia case "challenges us to do more to remove the perception that judicial campaign contributions influence decisions in Texas courts," said Jefferson, a Republican who won re-election in November after spending more than $842,000. Months ago, speaking before the Legislature, he was blunt about the problem, saying: "This is an area where perception itself destroys public confidence."

Since 1995, Texas has had contribution limits in judicial races: Individual families can donate $5,000, and political action committees are limited to $300,000. Most experts said that those limits could prevent a conflict as significant as the one in the West Virginia case, Caperton vs. Massey Coal Co., in which the chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court must now recuse himself from a $50 million suit because he accepted $3 million in campaign contributions from the top executive of the coal plant.

But criticism is not unprecedented. The question of influence over the Texas Supreme Court arose last year when the court overturned an $800,000 arbitration award to Bob and Jane Cull of Mansfield, who had sued Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, the largest GOP contributor in the state. The Culls had lodged a 10-year fight over a house with cracked foundations and walls, but their court victories were set aside by the state's highest court, where all nine of the justices had received contributions from Perry totaling $260,000. The contributions were directly from him and through a political action committee.

Texans for Public Justice, which has fought to rid judicial campaigns of political money, said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling shows that Texas judges should stop raising money from those who have business before the court.

"The court invites greater scrutiny -- and more federal challenges -- to determine when the corrupting influence of judicial campaign money violates the U.S. Constitution," said the group's director, Craig McDonald. Texas is one of four states where all general jurisdictional judges are selected in partisan elections, along with Louisiana, Alabama and West Virginia. The system works just fine, said Kirsten Gray, a spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have fought legislation that would change how the state elects its judges, saying Texans are fiercely protective of the opportunity to vote for judges.

Partisan labels are helpful for voters, and appointing judges doesn't remove the politics, Gray said. "Whether chosen by voters or appointed by the governor, ideology will be taken into account, so it's better to have those people who live in that area chose their own judges," Gray said.

Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and former Chief Justice Tom Phillips have both worked for a system in which judges are appointed and then the voters decide whether to retain them in office.
"The most useful thing the opinion might do is give further background to the debate on how we select judges," Phillips said. With partisan labels and money-raising pressures, "the whole system is bad," he said.

Duncan said he doubts the court decision will be much of an impetus to change Texas' ways because "there are just too many stakeholders who have an interest in keeping it the way we have it." But it could cause more judges to be asked to step aside in cases where their campaign donors have an interest. "In Texas, we need to take some time and scratch our heads and ask, 'Do we have sufficient safeguards to keep these situations from happening,' " Duncan said. "We've attempted to address some of those kinds of abuses, but if it is enough, I don't know."

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Nine Continental pilots have been accused of hatching a divorce scam to take money out of their pension retirement plans. Continental alleges the pilots and their spouses got paper-only divorces while continuing to live together and concealing the change in their marital status from their children and friends. Once a state court approved the divorces, the pilots signed court-issued documents giving their new ex-spouses all rights to a pilots-only pension plan, worth up to $900,000 per individual participant. Then, the spouses presented the paperwork to the Continental pension plan administrator with a request for a lump-sum distribution.

Such pre-retirement payments to former spouses are allowed under the federal law that governs employer-sponsored retirement saving and investing plans that grow tax-free.

But Continental alleges that after getting the money, the couples remarried. It calls the divorces “subterfuges or sham transactions.”  Continental filed a lawsuit against the nine pilots and their spouses to recover the money lost in the scam. Continental suggested in the lawsuit that the pilots — seven men and two women — were afraid of losing major chunks of their pensions because of the financial difficulties the airline industry experienced in 2005. Around that time, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and US Airways filed for bankruptcy protection, reneged on their pension promises and handed over the plans to a federal administrator to make good on a portion of the pension obligations.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.’s maximum guarantee is paid in periodic annuity payments instead of lump sums and is far less than a typical airline pilot pension. This year, for a 65-year-old person, the maximum is $54,000.

The Houston Chronicle reported the story this week. And, Good Morning America ran the story this morning as well.

In the GMA story, one of the female pilots accused of the scam insisted that her divorce was real and her reconciliation was real and none of the public's business.  A lawyer for one of the pilots speculated that the pilots would not have been able to hatch such a "complicated scheme" because they weren't lawyers.  (Lawyer snobbery?) 

But, the Chronicle story refers to a request by United Airllines in 1999 about some of its workers that got divorced in an alleged sham.  In that instance, 21 United maintenance workers in Indianapolis were accused of defrauding the retirement plan by following steps laid out in a pamphlet called the Retirement Liberation Handbook, which gave instructions on how to use divorce to acquire benefits prior to retirement.

This story illustrates the desperation some people fees in this difficult time.  Even though the Dallas area has fared better than other areas of the country, people get divorced for various reasons.  During my career as a Dallas Divorce Lawyer, I been aware of the occasional situation where the parties had other motives for a divorce than simply irreconcilable differences.  In each situation, the "sham" divorce backfired on the party that was trying to get away with something.  It just doesn't pay to be dishonest.

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Senate Bill 1838 was signed into law by Governor Perry yesterday.  The new law authorizes the court to order termination of the parent-child relationship if the court finds clear and convincing evidence that the parent has been convicted of a criminal attempt to the murder or criminal solicitation to murder the other parent of the child.

Under current law, the Family Code does not address the issue of parental rights when one parent commits the crime of criminal solicitation of murder against the child's other parent. 

The new law amends Texas Family Code Sec. 161.001. INVOLUNTARY TERMINATION OF PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP. It authorizes the court to order termination of the parent-child relationship if the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that the parent has been convicted of, attempted murder or solicitation of murder Under sectiosn 15.01 and 15.03 of the Texas Penal Code, or under similar laws of other states, countries or the military law.  

This law is effective September 1, 2009.

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A party in a complicated divorce proceeding has filed a lawsuit claiming his former counsel promised him a favorable outcome because of a “special relationship” with the presiding judge. The attorney and law firm named in the suit vehemently deny that any member of the firm made such a declaration at any time. The divorce involved significant property division issues, according to an attorney for the firm named in the suit.  See the full article at Texas Lawyer (shout out to John Council who wrote the article). 

Bascially, what happened according to the lawsuit (according to the client) -- the lawyer told the client that he had a special relationship with the Judge and therefore could affect the outcome of the case.  There was also a receiver appointed to sell a marital asset, and (again, according to the client), the lawyer said he had a relationship with the receiver and could obtain a favorable outcome from the receiver.  Then, all went badly for the client.  The receiver didn't do what the client wanted and somehow the Judge gave some informal opinion negative to the client, so the client agreed to an outcome that he didn't want.  So, the client blames the lawyer and files a lawsuit.

First, and very obviously, this is a one sided story.  The ethical rules require that lawyers cannot imply they have a special relationship with anyone in a manner that would influence the outcome of the case.  Further, a lawyer cannot guarantee a client a favorable or certain oucome.  IF the lawyer did either of those things, then the lawyer could be in big trouble.  But, again, that's a pretty big IF.  I'd think that the client who filed the lawsuit is going to have to have some corroborating proof of his allegations, beyond just his word that the lawyer made those statements.

This is Dallas divorce law drama unfolding.  It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

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