Other Family Law

How does no-fault divorce work in Tennessee?

  • In Tennessee it’s called irreconcilable

    differences and the only way you can get

    a divorce on the basis of irreconcilable

    differences in Tennessee is to have all

    of those five categories that I just

    listed settled resolved and agreed to in

    writing you have a what’s called a

    permanent parenting plan that determines

    parenting time some people call it it

    determines the amount of Child Support

    all the variables if you have a signed

    permanent parenting plan and then if you

    have the other document is called a

    marital dissolution agreement and it

    resolves the issues of alimony and the

    division of property if there’s going to

    be alimony the marital dissolution

    agreement has to spell out how much how

    long what conditions and

    contingencies the division of property

    has to cover all aspect ects of what the

    assets are what the debts are how

    they’re going to be divided if two

    people can reach a permanent parenting

    plan and a marital dissolution agreement

    then they can go into court and be

    granted a divorce on irreconcilable

    differences

What must be proved for a finding of contempt?

  • In Tennessee we have two types of

    contempt that that are in play in Family

    Law Court one is called criminal

    contempt and one is called civil

    contempt contempt essentially means that

    one party is in violation of an order of

    the Court we see this a lot uh if

    somebody doesn’t pay their child support

    if somebody doesn’t pay their alimony

    and child support and alimony are the

    only two debts out there that can get

    you in jail okay so to me I tell my

    clients it’s super important to stay up

    on top of all their obligations

    financially when they have a parenting

    plan or when they have a uh divorce

    where they’re required to pay some sort

    of financial support to their ex-spouse

    contempt it can be very serious our

    judges can put you in jail for a number

    of days they can fine you and depending

    on how many times you have been in

    contempt those fines start to rack up in

    the number of days start to rack up so

    it’s always my advice for my clients

    particularly to stay out of contempt

    just just follow the orders and the

    court will be happy and we can all move

    on forward with our lives but contempt

    is a very real weapon that we use in

    divorce court when we have somebody

    who’s not playing by the rules

What is your experience in handling LGBTQ divorce?

  • I have represented a number of lgbtq

    clients and I’ve mediated for lgbtq

    clients in divorce and of course the

    landscape’s changed dramatically since

    the Overfelt opinion uh what we’re

    seeing now the new trend is that

    parenting which used to be so severely

    restricted because people would uh

    either adopt or um they would do inv

    vitro or I UI where one partner is not

    the biological parent or perhaps even

    both partners aren’t the biological

    parents and this would cause all sorts

    of trouble in divorce and it still does

    for my lgbtq clients in some ways but

    our courts and our our legislature have

    worked hard to try to make a framework

    so that a child who has been in one

    parents life who may or may not be or

    who is not typically biologically

    related to that child need be able to

    continue that relationship and so with

    marriage now being legal it’s changed

    the landscape on that for every parent

    who has uh adopted a child after

    overfell and has been able to be married

    when that child is born it’s been a a

    real blessing to our lgbtq families