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Last week, we talked about the legalities behind giving a child three parents, and why it means that a loving step-parent can’t adopt their stepchild if the other biological parent doesn’t relinquish their parental status. First, let’s talk about why not. Why Michigan Has Disallowed Three Parents There are a few reasons why Michigan, along with many other states, have ...

Relatively common scenario: two people are married, but one has a kid by an ex-spouse. The new spouse loves the kid and wants to show their dedication to the kid, so they decide to attempt to adopt the kid. The old spouse has joint custody of the kid, but doesn’t particularly object as the adoption wouldn’t affect the custody agreement. ...

Divorce is an inherently messy process. We know from scientific studies of eyewitness testimony that three people who saw the same car will describe it, just minutes later, as a “brown SUV,” a “blue minivan,” and a “black truck.” If the brain can’t even specify concrete facts about something that happened just minutes ago (or even pass this profoundly insightful ...

There are a number of reasons why someone can get ‘locked’ into an abusive marriage — peer pressure, children, financial dependency, and blind love among them — but the reason that is the most confounding for outside observers is that some people simply don’t understand that they’re being abused. It can be extremely challenging for people who are living abuse-free ...

The law is clear in nearly every state, and ongoing efforts to enforce gender non-bias are proceeding in several states: the gender of the parent shouldn’t matter when determining the best interests of the child. Unfortunately, there are precious few guidelines for judges as to what “best interest” actually means — which opens up the courtroom to the opinions of ...

I’ve said on this blog a few times before — some quite recently — that the Michigan court system (and in fact the American court system) is biased toward mothers when it comes to child custody. This is true in a strictly legal sense, as the assumption regarding the children of unmarried parents is that the mother should automatically retain ...

In the state of Michigan, if you feel like your current child custody arrangement no longer meets your child’s needs (or has become hostile to your child’s well-being), the burden is on you to show ‘proper cause’ for a change. The Michigan courts are charged with the protection of a child’s best interests, but one of the basic assumptions the ...

Your family law attorney is not someone you should choose lightly — literally, the future of your domestic life hinges on their ability to guide you through some of the most emotionally, financial, and mentally taxing moments of your life. A bad lawyer, and you could end up with very little by way of money, no time with your kids, ...

When you’re a man, and you’re going through a divorce, you have a couple of significant things going against you. The one you can’t avoid is the theoretically no-longer-true but realistically still pretty true assumption that mothers are better parents than fathers. Even if they’re told specifically not to take gender into account, any group of people who know the ...

OK, sorry, I hate clickbait titles, but I tried like a dozen other ones and this one just felt the most accurate. Let me tell you what this post is actually about: it’s about a relatively obscure but pretty amazing app for Apple and Android called SupportPay. SupportPay has a few basic functions: It works with PayPal (you each have ...