Family law and child custody have once again been brought to the forefront of Hollywood news with the recent announcement that Judge John Ouderkirk has decided to award Brad Pitt joint custody of his children with Angelina Jolie. The decision applies to five Jolie-Pitt children who are all under the…
CRAVEN CTY. V. HAGEB, 2021-NCCOA-231 Child support in Greensboro is most often calculated using guidelines and worksheets that provide a formula based on income, overnights with the child, and some other factors. A failure to follow the guidelines is error that can be appealed. Most often, the biggest factors are…
For full text of S. 397 click here June is Children’s Awareness Month, and on the occasion a bill (S. 397) was introduced into the United States Senate titled the Safe Home Act. What this bill aims to do is curtail the “unregulated custody transfers” that occur incident to adoption.…
There are two main types of child custody in North Carolina: joint and exclusive/sole. In our state, the court’s job is to determine which parent serves the best interests of the child, after hearing and weighing all the evidence. The standard is probably uniform across all jurisdictions at this point.…
Baldwin v. Baldwin, unpublished (2021). After separation and divorce, it is not unheard of for one spouse to move out of state. If the former couple had minor children together, then the question is which spouse is primarily going to have custody of the children? Many factors may come into…
The month of May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Each year, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (“NAMI”) joins the national movement to raise awareness about mental health. For the year 2021, the message “You Are Not Alone” is the amplifying theme for the month. This theme is relevant now…
Utah recently enacted a new statute that denies hunting and fishing licenses to those who are delinquent on child support payments. They have recently began notifying some of those people that they may be denied licenses based on their delinquency. According to their state child support enforcement records, roughly 19,000…
Fecteau v. Spierer, COA20-532 (2020). Child custody orders are modifiable under North Carolina law. In order to modify, the party seeking a modification must show a substantial change in circumstances, from those found in previous order, that warrants modification. It may seem obvious that big changes in the custodial parent’s…
Fecteau v. Spierer, COA20-532 (2020). Child custody orders are modifiable. In order modify, the party seeking a modification must show a substantial change in circumstances, from those found in the previous order, that warrants modification. In some cases, primary physical custody is awarded to a nonparent. Most often, this nonparent…
Angel v. Sandoval, COA20-236 (unpublished 2020). If your ex, or you, lost a job and income and considered modifying child support to a lower amount in response, it may not always mean that the modification will be granted. Here in North Carolina, it depends on the circumstances surrounding the job…