Pennsylvania Family Law

The Family Courthouse at 1801 Vine Street in Philadelphia is a place families mostly want to avoid at all costs.

The “typical family” is no longer typical It’s sometimes amazing to consider how much the nature of the American family has changed over the last generation or two. The old pattern was remarkably uniform: Dad worked 9-to-5 outside the home, five days a week. Mom stayed at home and was responsible for maintaining the household […]

You know that it is time to end your marriage, but are you sure that you have a legal reason to get a divorce? Pennsylvania law only allows a couple to divorce in certain circumstances. Those circumstances include: Abandonment without a reasonable cause for one year or more. Adultery. Cruel treatment that puts your life […]

A lot of people think that a long-standing area of law is completely settled and unchanging. Take family law, for instance: we’ve had the practices of marriages, divorces, adoptions, and so on for as long as anyone can remember, so nothing much can change there, right? Oh, so wrong. Even the staid topic of family […]

The old proverb says, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” That’s not a fair way to look at all marriages, but many young couples in Pennsylvania have learned that marriage is not quite what they expected. For some troubled relationships, the solution turns out to be a postnuptial agreement. Like the more familiar prenuptial agreement, […]

Over the years the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld a trial court’s decision to enforce a post-nuptial agreement. An often-cited case is from 2013. This case involved an agreement between two spouses who had been married for thirteen years and contemplated divorce. It outlined the parties’ economic rights and included a provision that the wife would […]

A recent Pennsylvania case featured two ex-spouses who disagreed whether the husband was entitled to a modification of their existing support order. In the case, Windley v. Schwarz, the spouses were divorced in New Hampshire and thereafter agreed to a uniform support order. Under the agreed upon order, the husband was to pay the wife […]

Everyone told you that things would change once you became a parent. Now that you have a child, you know how true it is. The priorities in your life shifted, and you do everything you can to keep your child safe and happy. But there may be some things you can do to with the […]

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has committed to hear an appeal from a case decided by the Superior Court in August of last year. The issue on appeal is whether proceeds from the settlement of a will contest are marital property for the purposes of equitable distribution. A will contest is a lawsuit, usually brought by […]

Paying a divorce attorney is probably up there with paying taxes on the list of ways that you want to spend money. Yet, if you want a divorce you should consider hiring a lawyer. If you don’t the consequences can be significant just as they can be if you don’t pay what you owe the […]