One of the biggest problems we have with our divorce cases is the division or disposal of the marital home. Because it has been almost impossible to sell some houses some couples are stuck in limbo - never being able to completely separate their finances. Hopefully the new bailout bill will get us out of this difficult real estate market.
Attorney Howard Iken
Every year we see a slow time centered around the end of July and part of August. The summers are for wrapping up some existing divorce cases and catching up on built up paperwork. It is amazing to see the volume of calls drop to nothing for a few weeks.
Sometime in September of every year (this year was the last week of August) the phones start ringing again. They build for a week until the phones seem to gain a life of their own. One of my theories is “back to school” causes family conflict. But we see much more than custody issues. This week the phones are on steroids. It is gratifying to see so many people calling us to handle their personal situations.
For those of you that don’t know this: in Florida, retired judges can come back part time and fill in for other judges. They are called Senior Judges. Sometime when we have a hearing scheduled - we arrive only to find there is a Senior Judge filling in for that hearing.
Sometimes this is a good thing; sometimes it is a really bad thing. We had one case that lasted over a year and had many hearings. The judge on that case had the opportunity to learn about the situation in detail. We arrived at the final trial and discovered a different judge would make the final decision. The final decision turned out to be a big surprise.
In Florida, marital and family law is guided in part by a set of statutes passed by our lawmakers. Those statutes lay out most major rules, principles, and guiding policy for divorces and custody cases in Florida. Those laws are known as Chapter 61 of the Florida Statutes.
The problem is that lawmakers cannot think of the approximately 1 gazillion different situations that can pop up. For every rule there are thousands of exceptions. For every situation there are thousands of twists on those situations. Because a rule cannot be written for every single situation - there exists a mechanism for defining more rules as time goes on and as more exceptions are discovered. We attorneys know this process as “case law.” Every time a case is decided, future cases are affected and guided by that case. The deal is: judges are supposed to consider past court decisions and guide their future decisions in a similar manner.
Because of “case law”, attorneys constantly research and read developing cases and the opinions that judges write. We use this information to help predict the likely outcome of our client’s case.