Custody Battles

utah custody battle attorney

I was asked whether we do custody battles.

Yes, we do.

What is a Custody Battle?

A custody battle is when you and your ex fight over who should have custody of the kids. Typically, it is about physical custody. Meaning where the kids spend the night.

There is some confusion about physical custody, but the standard in Utah looks at where the child spends the night. If the child spends the night at your house the majority of the time, then you are said to have primary physical custody. If you have more than 111 overnights in a year each, then you have a joint physical custody situation. If you have 255 or more overnights in a year, then you have sole physical custody. This is simple math. The more overnights you get the better off you are in terms of custody.

How to Win a Custody Battle

The best way to win a custody battle is to not engage in petty behaviors like name calling and treating the other parent like crap. You want to take the higher road.

The next step is to begin gathering facts as to why the kids should be with you. For example, who helps the kids with homework? Is it you? Then we need to put down how often you do that.

Are you teaching the kids responsibility by giving them chores to do? We need that information – get that to us.

And just like that, we take each thing that you are doing for your kids and we outline it to the judge.

Also, and this is very important — you don’t want anything negative. If there is anything negative, we want to end it so you can be riding on the white horse saving your kids.

Facts make or break a custody battle, so you want to have all the facts on your side.

You be the parent that your kids need and we show it to the judge. You can come out as a winner if we do this right.

Conclusion

If you are ready to win your custody battle, give us a call. We’re ready to help you.

Ascent Law LLC
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 676-5507

SEO by Jeremy Eveland

source http://lawyerdivorceutah.com/2017/02/15/custody-battles/

Divorce Court in Utah

divorce in utah

So I was asked by a new client: which courthouse will my divorce be in?

We don’t get to pick which courthouse your case will be in. Utah law requires that we file your divorce case in the county where you have resided in during the last 3 months. If you have minor children, then we must file where the minor children have resided for the last 6 months. This makes it so that you have

Since our main office is located in West Jordan, sometimes clients believe that we can file their case in the West Jordan Courthouse. Although we wish that we could (after all, the West Jordan Courthouse is only a 2 minute drive from our office); however, all cases in Salt Lake County must be filed in the Matheson Courthouse, located at 450 South State Street.

Here is a photo of the building:

divorce courthouse in utah

You’ve probably seen this building before. Most cases in Salt Lake end up here. There are other courthouses in Salt Lake City, but this is the main one. Now, if you live in South Jordan, Sandy, West Jordan, Draper, or Riverton for example, you must file your divorce case in the Matheson Courthouse. Now, about 1 out of ever 4 cases is administratively assigned to the West Jordan Courthouse. This means that you may get lucky and not have to drive all the way downtown. But it is completely out of our control. This is done by the administrative office of the courts and has nothing to do with us.

The Salt Lake County District court is in the Third Judicial District. All of the courts of general jurisdiction in the state of Utah are divided up into judicial districts and are called “district courts.” All divorces must be filed in a district court. Justice courts in Utah do not have the proper jurisdiction for you to file for divorce there. In fact, if you tried to file for divorce in Justice Court, they very likely would not accept your case filing and reject it.

The Third District includes Salt Lake County, Tooele County and Summit County. If you are filing for divorce and you live in Park City, Utah; then, you would file in the Third District Court, Summit County Department. If you live in Tooele, Utah or Grantsville, you would file in the Third District Court, Tooele Department.

The court in Provo, Utah County, does the same thing that the Salt Lake District Court does.. If you live in Lehi, American Fork, Orem or Provo, you must file your case in the Provo courthouse located at 125 West 100 North, Provo, Utah. But, a random amount of cases is re-assigned to the American Fork Department of the Fourth Judicial District. So, despite the fact that if you live in Utah county and you are required to file for divorce in the Provo Department, it is possible that you case is reassigned to the American Fork Department. Now, with that said, you should understand that divorce courts in Utah use the court commissioner system, meaning that sometimes you do not appear before a judge, but before a court commissioner.

In Utah County, the Court Commissioners are in Provo. So, if your case is reassigned to American Fork, you may still have to go to the Provo Courthouse for your hearing if it is before a court commissioner. Keep this in mind because you don’t want to go to the wrong courthouse.

I hope this has been helpful to you.

Please let us know other questions that you have so we can better help you with your legal needs.

Be sure to call us if you need a family law attorney.

Until the next post – thanks for visiting!

Utah Divorce Lawyer

Ascent Law LLC
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 676-5507

SEO by Jeremy Eveland

source http://lawyerdivorceutah.com/2017/02/14/divorce-court-in-utah/

Order to Show Cause – Contempt Charges

order to show cause utah

Order to Show Cause

Contempt Procedures or Contempt Charges

An order to show cause in Utah is a way that your ex-spouse can force you to comply with a court order.

Perhaps it best to use an example.

Let’s say there is a temporary order in place in your divorce case that requires you to pay temporary alimony to your spouse during the divorce case. Let’s say it is for $500 per month. So, for whatever reason, let’s say that you don’t pay your spouse the $500 per month. Your spouse can bring an order to show cause before the court, asking you to be held in contempt of court for your failure to obey the lawful court order. (i.e. – not paying the $500 per month).

So, contempt of court can be a monetary sanction – meaning you pay your spouse’s attorney’s fees, costs, and a punitive dollar amount. Contempt can also be by putting you in jail for a weekend or, until you are current on your payments. This is drastic, but I’ve seen it happen. You really don’t want to get thrown into jail.

Contempt can play a big role after a court has actually issued a judgment, order, temporary order, or decree to control the actions of the parents, which it can do at any type of point throughout the separation or divorce, or custody proceedings. As soon as the court has provided such ruling, it is extremely important for you to obey them and for your ex to obey them as well. Courts hate it when a parent neglects their orders.

If an attorney and his client can create evidence that you have willfully violated the provisions of a court order; then, they can “make a motion” or file an “order to show cause” for a contempt ruling.

How to Get a Contempt Ruling

In Utah, it goes to 2 hearings:

First, there is a hearing before the court commissioner. This is just where attorney’s make argument. The court commissioner will certify the issue for contempt. If certified for contempt, then the court will allow an evidentiary hearing to take place on the order to show cause.

Second, there is an evidentiary hearing. This is set before the district court judge in your case. This is like a mini-trial because you will have to take the witness stand and testify and your ex will take the stand and testify and any other witnesses will also need to be there.

Technically, a contempt action is appropriate anytime you or your ex goes against any kind of provision of the court order or decree. Most of the time, however, the violation or infraction needs to be considerable.

To find a party in contempt of court requires there to be a “willful intent” to violate the order. The court can not just conclude that the party did not act based on the decree. The court has to rule on the evidence that the accused purposely did so and did so without a good reason.

Consequences of a Contempt Ruling

Remember that a contempt charge is civil in nature and not a crime. This means that usually you’re not looking at jail time.

Still, I have seen courts put a non-compliant person behind bars for failing to pay child support of alimony on purpose.

I hope this has been helpful.

Let me know your thoughts.

Ascent Law LLC
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 676-5507

SEO by Jeremy Eveland

source http://lawyerdivorceutah.com/2017/02/10/order-to-show-cause-contempt-charges/

Divorce Lawyers Near Me

divorce lawyer near me

Do I need to hire a divorce lawyer near me or near the court where I’ll be filing for divorce?

The answer may surprise you – but the answer is maybe.

In divorce cases, our main location is in West Jordan, Utah – so of course we go to the Matheson courthouse and we go to the West Jordan Courthouse for divorce cases, but we’ve also been all over the state of Utah. We’ve been to Manti, Ogden, Provo, and all across the state.

Yes, the majority of our cases are in Salt Lake County, Utah County, Weber and Davis Counties – this is true. So, it really depends on what type of case that you have and what it is you are trying to accomplish. Are you modifying your divorce decree? Is your case contested or uncontested? Will it take years or will you be done in 90-120 days?

All of these questions play a role as to where you want your lawyer to be located. Ever if your lawyer is right next to the courthouse like us (we are a 2 minute drive to the West Jordan Courthouse) that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve got the best lawyer for the job.

You wouldn’t hire a plumber to do your dental work would you? Then you shouldn’t hire just anyone to do your divorce or family law case.

You should at least get a free legal case review with our office just to go over things and make sure your case is on the right track. Oftentimes, we’ve been able to help our clients avoid years of litigation and tons of frustration.

You can do the same. Call us when you are ready.

Divorce in Utah

Ascent Law LLC
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 676-5507

SEO by Jeremy Eveland

source http://lawyerdivorceutah.com/2017/02/08/divorce-lawyers-near-me/

Divorce Lawyer Provo Utah

Divorce Lawyer Provo Utah

Are you a divorce lawyer in Provo, Utah?

Well yes, we regularly do divorced in Provo. We have appeared before all of the judges and court commissioners in Provo. Commissioner Patton and Commissioner Faulkner are both respected and detail oriented.

In this video we explain that we practice family law in Provo, Utah.

What is family law?

Family law is the area of law that pertains to families and family relationships. So we do divorces, separations, pre-nups, custody cases, adoption cases, juvenile cases, DCFS cases, and any other type of case that has to do with the family.

One of the staff here at our office has adopted 3 children! One of the former attorneys has been through a divorce. We are all part of a family in one way or another and sometimes those relationships get strained or have to change. We help people deal with those changes.

If you need a family law attorney in Provo, Utah, you should give our office a call.

Divorce Lawyer Provo Utah

Ascent Law LLC
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 676-5507

source http://lawyerdivorceutah.com/2017/02/02/divorce-lawyer-provo-utah/

How Do I Find Out When My Divorce Is Final?

How Do I Find Out When My Divorce Is Final?

Yesterday I received this question: How Do I Find Out When My Divorce Is Final?

Good question, I responded: When did you file for divorce?

The response came: Well, I think my ex filed a few years ago.

“Alright” I replied, “Do you know your case number?”

No.

Let’s search by name then – … we searched by name and we couldn’t find her case. We tried dates of birth and we tried her ex’s name. Nothing came up. I asked her if she had ever seen divorce papers. She said she thought she had, but her ex told her he was taking care of it. I had her contact her ex, get a case number and call me back.

Long story shorter – he had never filed for divorce!

Can you believe it!

Yup, it’s true. She thought they had been divorced for at least 2 years, but nothing was ever filed with the court.

Now, if you are sure that a divorce case was filed and you have a case number, an attorney can easily look up your case and find out what the status of the case is. We simply log into the court’s system here in Utah and we search by the case number and we can pull up the court docket and we can tell you what has happened in the case.

If you want to know when your case was finalized, we could look up that too, but we can’t get you certified copies of court papers and, unless we represent you, we can’t even look at the court papers because they are private records.

If you retain us as your lawyers, we can pull up all of the paperwork on your case and get you copies of your divorce decree, modifications, temporary orders or whatever the case maybe.

I share this story because I want you to know that if your spouse moves out and tells you they are filing for divorce, you ought not believe it until you receive divorce papers.

If you do receive divorce papers, you should contact our office to discuss how to move forward in your divorce case so that you can do exceptionally well.

So whether you have a contested case or an uncontested case, we are happy to assist you.

Call us when you need help or have questions.

Family Law Attorney Salt Lake City Utah

Ascent Law LLC
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 876-5875

source http://lawyerdivorceutah.com/2017/01/31/how-do-i-find-out-when-my-divorce-is-final/

Do I have to take the divorce education and orientation class?

Do I have to take the divorce education and orientation class?

This is a great question.

Why do you have to attend a divorce education class when filing for divorce in Utah?

Well, the courts have determined after reviewing several studies that parents need to understand how to navagate the divorce process with children around.

Oftentimes, the children of a divorced couple can suffer negative unintended consequences from a divorce. For example, when I was a kid, I had a good friend whose parents got divorced. It was devastating to him. He literally thought that the divorce was his fault.

Think about that for a minute. My friend thought that his parents were getting divorced because of him. Because he thought he was such a horrible kid that his parents were divorcing. How wrong is that?

The divorce orientation and education class in Utah is important. You need to know how to set boundaries and educate your children in such a way that they will be alright. They need to be able to cope and love both their mom and their dad. Children shouldn’t be required to choose one parent over another — even if one parent is to blame and the other isn’t.

The best thing for you to do is love your kids and don’t involve them in the divorce process.

Take the divorce education class.

The link is here –

https://www.utcourts.gov/specproj/dived/

Now that you’ve got the link – check out the calendar on the official court website and go take the class. It’s required so you’ve got to do it if you have minor children.

Once it’s done, make sure you tell your attorney so that they are aware — they need you to do that if you want to receive any affirmative relief from the court, like filing a motion for temporary orders or something like that.

I hope this post has been helpful.

If you need more information on divorce in Utah, give us a call – we’d be honored to assist you with your case.

Until next time –

Divorce in Utah

Ascent Law LLC
8833 S. Redwood Road, Suite C
West Jordan, Utah
84088 United States
Telephone: (801) 676-5507

source http://lawyerdivorceutah.com/2017/01/27/do-i-have-to-take-the-divorce-education-and-orientation-class/