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Divorce Lawyer Norfolk

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Divorce amounts to a massive detour in your life that must be addressed before you can move forward into your post-divorce future. Because your parental and financial rights are at stake, spending the time necessary to obtain terms that work for you and your children is well advised, and an experienced divorce lawyer in Norfolk can help you with that. 

Your Divorce

While your divorce will not be like your neighbor’s, your coworker’s, or anyone else’s, it will address the same basic divorce terms (as applicable). These include:

Your Legal and Physical Custody Arrangements

Child custody addresses who will be making important parenting decisions for your children (legal custody) and how you and your ex will divide your parenting time (physical custody).

Legal custody determines who will be making the primary parenting decisions, such as those that relate to the following:

  • Your children’s health care
  • Your children’s schooling and extracurricular activities
  • Your children’s religious upbringing

Legal custody can be shared, can be sole, or can be divided between you according to the kind of issue that is at hand.

Physical custody outlines when your children will be with you and when they will be with their other parent. One of you may become the primary custodial parent while the other has the children according to a visitation schedule, or you may divide your time with the children more evenly. If you are able to negotiate this divorce term between yourselves, you have considerable scheduling flexibility, but if you need the court’s intervention, you can expect a standard visitation schedule. 

Child Support

The parent who is the higher earner will generally pay child support – even if your parenting time is divided evenly. Child support is calculated in accordance with state guidelines that focus primarily on each parent’s income and on the percentage of time that each parent is responsible for the children. 

The Division of Marital Property

The assets that you obtain while you are married are generally considered marital property, and those assets that you bring into the marriage with you (and keep disentangled from your marital assets) will generally remain your separate property. In the event of divorce, marital property must be divided equitably, which means fairly (taking all relevant factors into consideration). 

Alimony

Alimony is intended to help balance financial discrepancies between divorcing spouses. For instance, if you experience a financial downturn upon divorce (and your ex has the means to help), alimony may be ordered (to help you gain greater financial independence). 

Seek the Professional Legal Guidance of an Experienced Divorce Lawyer in Norfolk

Divorce can upend your finances and your parenting experience in ways you may not see coming, which makes having skilled legal counsel on your side critical. The practiced Norfolk divorce lawyers at Mahoney Richmond Thurston, PLLC, are committed to skillfully advocating for your rights – in focused pursuit of divorce terms that work for you. To learn more, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.Â