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Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard

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WHY MEDIATION?

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – while headline grabbing fights between media celebrities are not unusual, how would you like the gritty details of your divorce or custody fight to be available for order online – open to anyone that wants to look you up or do a background check for employment?

 

Hands fighting for money
 

At Team Works, we have done more than 4000 mediations, striving to reduce the amount of your personal information in the court‘s public file to a minimum. You know why that is more important than ever, now?

 

 

Because for the last several months, anyone can look up your name online, get your case number, and then order for delivery through the mail, copies of any and all of your divorce documents. Scary, huh?!

 

We make divorce simple. We save you money. We take care of you.

Team Works, the team that works for you.

 

Jefferson Stacer – Our business is people.

 

 

Kim and Kanye’s Divorce Battle

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Nearly one year after taking legal action to end her marriage, Kim Kardashian filed paperwork requesting to be declared legally single and have her maiden name restored in December 2021.

“The parties’ marriage has irremediably broken down. Kardashian no longer wishes to be married to West”, the legal documents stated.

Kim submitted another set of divorce documents in February 2022 asking again to be declared legally single. In the filing, she claimed that Kanye had gone against her wishes to keep their split private and suggested that his social media posts were causing “emotional distress”.

Their child custody battle has been all over the media in the last few months and this is what our family law attorney, Jefferson Stacer had to say regarding this topic.

 

For any questions related to family law, divorce, mediation or child custody, contact Jefferson Stacer at (858) 485-8595 or attend one of our free workshops, designed to answer any questions or concerns you are having. You can register for it here – stacerlaw.com/free-workshop-registration

 

 

 

Child Support – What is Included and What is Not?

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Where does California child support law come from?

2 parents holding a ripped apart "dollar sign"
Child Support in California - what is included and what is not?

Starting in the 1980s, there was a national level effort to standardize and deal with enforcement of child support obligations. The Feds required each and every state, with a uniform, statewide formula, for imputing child support, rather than leave it to the vagaries of what an individual judge felt was right. California took quite a while to get their act together in response to this federal mandate, but finally came up with a relatively complicated formula that can be found at https://childsupport.ca.gov/guideline-calculator/

Most attorneys that practice family law have third party software package that calculates child support with the most popular program being called DissoMaster, which is used by most courts. The child support guideline formula applies one corner of California to the other corner, regardless of the difference in economy and cost-of-living of San Diego County versus Imperial County.

In California, a parent is obligated to support their children through age 18, if they have graduated from high school, or through high school graduation, assuming the child is attending high school full-time, but not past reaching the age of 19 in any event. There is a law that supports a continuing child support obligation for disabled adult children.

 

What is included in "guideline" California child support?

"Guideline" California child support is supposed to in include a contribution towards the food, shelter and clothing of the child from one parent to the other. The formula compares the before tax income, less allowable inductions of each parent, and then factors in at what extent the children are being shared by the parents. The formula allocates a certain amount of financial contribution by both parents towards the support of their children as a first priority expense, after taxes, health insurance premiums and other allowable deductions and then allocates that amount between the parents, depending upon their relative incomes and timeshare with the children.

 

What are California child support add-ons?

Girl at the dentist with her mother
Healthcare expenses included in child support

Additional "mandatory" child support includes work or school related childcare expenses and out of pocket, after insurance coverage, healthcare expenses incurred for the benefit of the minor children. Childcare expenses can be divided between the parents or paid by one parent and reimbursed by the other, and are generally shared equally. There are complex rules regarding out-of-pocket healthcare expenses that require these expenses to be billed to the other parent within 30 days, but these are also generally shared equally. "Healthcare expenses" generally include psychological, medical, dental, vision care and pharmacy expenses.

What is not included in California child support?

Of course, there are multitude of different expenses that can be incurred for the benefit of children such as tutoring, private school, activity expenses, school trips, back-to-school clothing purchases, toys and organized sports expenses. Under certain circumstances, the court can order sharing of tutoring and school related expenses.

However, as a general rule, all of the other expenses are left to the parents to agree, unless there is a stipulated order that requires a sharing of these other kinds of expenses.

 

How is child support paid and enforced?

For the most part, child is voluntarily paid by parents that cooperate on a monthly, biweekly, or even weekly. These days, it is often most convenient to pay child support by electronic transfer that can be automated. Child support can also be paid by an automatic deduction form the payer's wages by an Income Withholding Order. An Income Withholding order pays the child support directly from the payer's wages electronically to the State Disbursement Unit (SDU), which then electronically distributes the money to the payee's account or a debit type card. The payee must set up an account with the SDU for this to happen.

If child support is not properly paid, each individual monthly amount will bear 10% simple interest, until it is paid. Child support owing cannot be bankrupted. There is also a law providing for an additional penalty on each amount of child support owing if it has been properly noticed. The Department of Child Support Services (DCSS), which is a cabinet level, state agency can be engaged, upon application, to enforce a child support obligation for free. DCSS has their own court to handle these matters and will automatically seek an Income Withholding Order and record a lien, so that if a person wants to get a loan, they will have to satisfy any arrears.

 

For further questions, please register and attend one of our twice monthly free workshops at www.stacerlaw.com/workshop.

 

 

What Not To Do On Social Media During a Divorce?

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Mention of this topic brings a host of memories to mind of the impact of social media upon divorce and custody proceedings. Probably the best advice is, DON’T.

A woman laying and using her phone

First of all, something you should do is let your family and closest friends know that there is a breakup of your relationship in the process. You should probably do this by voice as opposed to in writing. The problem is that a divorce/breakup is usually an embarrassing event in your life, it is a recognition of a failure of dreams. It is not uncommon for even those closest to you to be unaware of what is really gone wrong in your life. You don’t want your soon-to-be ex, if they have evil intent, to be contacting those that are close to you in a manipulative and investigative fashion and succeeding because those people are unaware. The message should be – “Just to let you know, my relationship with ____ is ending, and you should be careful about communications with ____, or even attempting to try to fix the problem. At this point, it is beyond repair and harm will be done if you get involved or provide information.”

1. PRIVACY SETTINGS AND CURIOSITY

Phone with a Facebook Log In page

Just about anything you post on social media will probably be harmful in one way or another. The problem is a matter of perception. When you are in a trusted relationship, communications are almost always given a positive and trusted spin., until that trusted relationship breaks down. When you are in the opposite of a trusted relationship, just about any communication will be perceived with a negative spin. This will have the impact of pouring gasoline on the fire and potentially causing harm to your job, your business, your relationship with others, your children and your funds.

Another problem is that your post will almost always get out to the other side. Often, your soon-to-be ex is very curious about what you are up to, who are you doing it with, and generally anything about what’s happening, and what you are planning. No matter what your security settings are, someone will have access to the post that may decide to share that post with your ex. You simply are not in control of that.

2. UNFLATTERING IMAGES

partyWhat’s even more dangerous is a post by someone else tagging or including you in a picture of a party, drinking, with someone else, or doing something that might have impact upon the court case. You must assume that these kinds of posts will find their way into your court record and be portrayed in the most unflattering way.

 

3. FAKE PROFILES

You should also keep track of posts that may be fabricated as being originated by you. Keep an eye out for these things. For example, a post that violates on the Facebook/Meta, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and Twitter companies, may result in you being banned from those platforms.

I have had many cases impacted by social media posts. One very intelligent client of mine insisted that he had a right to post about his “feelings” during a divorce. This cost him an extra attorney’s fees. Another attended a party, was standing next to an attractive lady, that the ex saw, which caused the case to really go south and cost extra money. He wasn’t even involved with that lady. Your children will have access to those posts at some point. I have seen people drinking alcoholic beverages used in court cases. Often, the non-posted spouse is provided a copy of the post by a well-meaning friend that still had access to the post.

Generally, while the case is going on, and afterwards if emotions are raw, just don’t put anything out on social media because it will most likely be interpreted negatively by your ex and that person will do something in response out of hurt feelings, jealousy or spite.

The Team at TeamWorks has the expertise to help you learn these strategies of what to do and not do during a divorce. Contact us to schedule an appointment at 858-675-9225 or attend our FREE TeamWorks workshops twice a month.