Divorce litigation

Divorce litigation in New York is primarily concerned with the division of marital assets, custody of unemancipated children and child and spousal support. There is a large body of legislation associated with matrimonial laws in New York, which is designed to settle disputes of this nature in an equitable and just fashion protecting the best interest of the parties and their children.

Divorce cases are generally categorized as contested or uncontested divorces.

In contested divorce cases the divorcing spouses cannot reach an agreement as to how to settle their divorce issues. The New York legal system allows the judge to have the final decision relating to such matters.

Our law firm specializes in contested divorce cases. We represent clients in continuous trials by providing them with forensic experts in custody cases, residential appraisers for evaluation of the marital residence, and evaluators of the value of the parties’ businesses and enhanced earning capacity.

Our Law firm often represents clients at the Integrated Domestic Violence Part of the Supreme Court, where the courts join contested divorces with criminal and domestic violence cases associated with orders of protection between the same divorcing spouses.  Such an approach saves a tremendous amount of money to our clients as they don’t have to pay different attorneys in order to represent them in the aforementioned cases separately.     

In uncontested divorces both spouses are able to find common ground as well as come to an agreement concerning the division of marital assets, child custody and child and spousal support.  The settlement can be further complicated if a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement exists. Although many people believe that a prenuptial agreement guarantees a straightforward divorce, it is however possible for this agreement to be contested.

The legal system in New York aims to divide property equitably between both partners in the case of a contested divorce. This does not mean that everything is split evenly, or ‘equally’, but that the joint assets are divided fairly. An important stage of this process is the identification of all joint martial assets, which can be the subject of some dispute.

Once these items have been identified it is then necessary for the legal counsel of each party to demonstrate how large a share of each asset should go to their respective client. This is quite a complex process as there are many factors that must be taken into consideration.

Our law firm specializes in such complex litigation and vigorously protects the interests of our clients.