Elmhurst Divorce Attorney

Elmhurst Divorce Attorney

The emotional landscape of divorce varies for everyone who goes through it, but there is very little variance when it comes to the terms of divorce. If you are facing a divorce, protecting both your parental and financial rights is of the essence, and an experienced Elmhurst divorce attorney can help. 

Your Parental Rights

In Illinois, your rights as a parent break down into your child custody arrangements, which are addressed in terms of parental responsibilities and parenting time, and child support. Let’s take a closer look. 

Parental responsibilities refer to the responsibility of making fundamental parenting decisions like the following:

• The schooling your children will receive
• The medical care your children will receive
• The extracurriculars and travel your children will participate in
• The religious upbringing your children will receive

You and your children’s other parent can tackle this term of divorce in any of the following ways:

• You can continue making these decisions between yourselves.
• One of you can acquire the ability to break a tie in the event your authentic efforts at negotiations stall.
• You can divide these decisions between yourselves according to their category.
• One of you can take on sole parental responsibilities and will make each of the necessary decisions on their own.

Parenting time sets what you may think of as your visitation schedule. While your scheduling options are nearly limitless, you will either divide your parenting time somewhat evenly, or one of you will take on the role of the primary custodial parent who has the children for most overnights. 

Child support is intended to help ensure that each parent’s financial responsibility to their children is fulfilled. The primary concerns when it comes to calculating child support include:

• The number of overnights each parent spends with the children
• The amount each parent earns

Even when parenting time is divided evenly, the parent who has more significant earnings is likely to pay child support. 

Your Financial Rights

Your financial rights in divorce are addressed in terms of the division of your marital property and spousal maintenance (as appropriate). Every asset that comes to you, your spouse, or both of you while you are married is considered marital and thus needs to be included in the equitable – or fair – division of your marital property. While separate property remains separate, it can be exceptionally difficult to maintain an asset’s separate nature throughout the course of a marriage. 

While spousal maintenance can be an important financial matter in divorce, it is only relevant when the divorce leaves one spouse unable to support themself financially while the other is able to provide financial assistance. 

An Experienced Elmhurst Divorce Attorney Is Standing by to Help

Cameron H. Goodman at Goodman Law Firm is a focused Elmhurst divorce attorney with an array of impressive experience guiding cases like yours toward beneficial outcomes that faithfully uphold our clients’ financial and parental rights. To learn more about what we can do to also help you, please don’t wait to reach out and contact us today.