Divorce is not something couples take lightly, but if you’ve made the difficult decision that you need a divorce – or if your spouse has made the decision for you – you shouldn’t wait to reach out for professional legal guidance. The terms of your divorce will directly affect you and your children’s future, which makes consulting with an experienced Evanston divorce attorney an important place to start.
While there’s no denying that divorce is an emotional journey, it is also the dissolution of a legal contract, which makes it a cold, hard legal matter. In fact, the divorce process is nothing if not a balancing act. While your divorce will not be a cookie-cutter version of anyone else’s, it will need to address the same applicable terms, which include all the following:
In Illinois, marital property refers to the assets you and your spouse acquired during your marriage, and in the event of divorce, they must be distributed between you fairly – in relation to a range of relevant factors. While those separate assets that either of you owned prior to marriage will remain each spouse’s separate property, the line that divides separate property from marital can be ambiguous.
Child custody in Illinois is addressed in terms of parental responsibilities and parenting time. Parental responsibilities correspond with legal custody and determine how parents will address their primary decision-making responsibilities, including those related to:
Parenting time references the schedule that determines each parent’s overnights with the children – as well as a variety of other scheduling variables.
The State of Illinois employs a child support calculation program that is designed to balance both parents’ financial responsibility to their children. While many factors go into the determination, the spouse who has higher earnings typically makes the child support payments to the other parent – even when overnights are divided evenly.
The state of Illinois addresses alimony as spousal maintenance, and it is reserved for those divorces in which one spouse is left without the financial means to continue supporting themself, and the other is capable of offsetting this imbalance. Alimony is usually intended to afford the recipient the time they need to become more financially independent.
Your divorce may look very different than anyone else’s, but protecting your financial and parental rights from the very beginning is critical to its outcome. The practiced Evanston divorce attorneys at Hammer Serna & Quinn, LLC, take great pride in their proven ability to help valued clients like you obtain divorce terms that allow them to move forward with purpose and peace of mind. Your case is important, and we’re here to help, so please don’t put off reaching out and contacting us for more information about what we can do for you today.
Call or email Hammer Serna & Quinn, LLC today to schedule a consultation.