Best Divorce Attorney Elmhurst

Best Divorce Attorney Elmhurst

When it comes to divorce, your parental and financial rights are paramount. The terms of your divorce will play a profound role in your post-divorce future, which makes working closely with one of the best divorce attorneys in Elmhurst in your and your children’s best interests. 

Parenting Time

Instead of child custody, Illinois courts deal with parenting time and significant decision-making responsibility. Parenting time determines when the children are with you in your home and when they are with their other parent in their home. A long list of relevant factors goes into determining parenting time orders, but the court is always guided by the children’s best interests. 

The two basic options when it comes to parenting time include:

• The kids spend the majority of their overnights with one parent, making him or her the primary custodial parent.
• The kids divide their time relatively evenly between the homes of both parents. 

Significant decision-making responsibility, on the other hand, determines who will be making the important, big-picture decisions for your children moving forward. Such decisions include matters related to the following:

• Your children’s schooling
• Your children’s healthcare needs
• Your children’s extracurricular activities and elective travel
• Your children’s religious upbringing

One parent can take on this responsibility on his or her own, or you can make the decisions jointly. There are also the options of one of you having tie-breaking authority or of dividing the responsibility according to the category of the decision being made.

Child Support

Both parents are required by law to support their children financially, and child support is the tool used to address the matter when parents are not together. While the state has a careful child support calculation methodology in place, the courts have the discretion to go outside these guidelines when warranted. Typically, the number of overnights each parent has with the children and each parent’s income are the primary factors involved. Even when parents split their overnights right down the middle, the parent who earns more generally pays child support. 

The Division of Marital Property

When you were married, you and your spouse acquired assets, and these are considered marital property, which means they are owned by both of you. Upon divorce, these assets (or their corresponding values) will need to be split between the two of you in a manner that is deemed fair in relation to the circumstances. 

Maintenance/Alimony

Maintenance (alimony or spousal support) is not a factor in every divorce. Only in those situations in which one spouse (the recipient of support) faces a divorce-related financial downturn, and the other spouse has the ability to help will alimony be ordered. Generally, alimony is ordered for a duration that is intended to allow the recipient the time he or she needs to gain greater financial independence through education, job training, or experience.  

Turn to One of the Best Divorce Attorneys in Elmhurst for the Help You Need

Cameron H. Goodman at Goodman Law Firm in Elmhurst is a well-respected divorce attorney who takes great pride in his impressive track record of successfully guiding cases like yours toward beneficial resolutions. To learn more, please reach out and contact us today.