The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission offers the following tips on costumes, treats and decorations to help your children trick-or-treat safely this year:

The final decision in this case is not earth shattering, but it provides a good discussion of how DHS operates during the course of a case. As always, if a parent will follow the case plan then reunification is likely. If the parent does not follow the case plan then termination is likely.

Here’s the case…
http://courts.arkansas.gov/court_opinions/coa/2009b/20091028/ca09-611.pdf

Administrative Order No. 10 provides guidance as to calculating a payor’s net income for child support. A distinction is made between self-employed payors and those that are not self-employed.

In this case, the payor was previously self-employed but was not self-employed for the months leading up to the final hearing. Nonetheless, the trial court used the self-employed methodology contained in Administrative Order No. 10. The Court of Appeals reverses due to that error.

Here’s the case…
http://courts.arkansas.gov/court_opinions/coa/2009b/20091021/ca08-1451.pdf

As you might suspect, divorce shines a light on just about everything that is private in your life. In this Orlando, Florida divorce, nude photographs of the wife are at issue. Turns out that husband decided to put them on a spanish pornography site. Wife has sued him stating that the photos were meant only for her husband, not to be distributed over the internet.
At first blush (no pun intended:), it seems that the photos are technically marital property and therefore belong to both the husband and the wife - to do with what he or she wants. But in all fairness, should a spouse be able to do something like this and get away with it?

A decision has not yet been made by the court.

Here’s a link to the article…
Click here for article
http://cbs4.com/local/divorce.nude.photographs.2.1140184.html

Time magazine asks this question in the following article…
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1930772,00.html?xid=rss-topstories-polar

The police in Sumner County, Tennessee say “yes.”

Here’s the link…
http://www.abajournal.com/news/did_court_order_ban_facebook_poke/?from=widget

Seven Myths of Divorce
Posted on October 2, 2009 by J. Benjamin Stevens www.scfamilylaw.com

Myth 1: Most men cheat on their wives.
Actually, the best designed study to date indicates that nearly 80% of men report that they have never cheated on their wives.

Myth 2: Most divorcing women are jilted by their husbands.
Many studies have corroborated that the great majority of divorces (two thirds to three quarters, depending on the study) are initiated by women. This makes sense because numerous studies indicate that men are generally happier being married than are women, they report less marital frustration and dissatisfaction, and are less likely to consider the option of divorce.

Myth 3: Women bitterly regret divorce.
Most divorced women do not regret divorcing. Moreover, divorced women are generally happier than divorced men. And one large study suggests that many middle-aged women become happier after their divorce. These women showed an increase in positive self-image and self-esteem and were inspired by their divorce to gain more control of their lives. Many enjoyed sex more after their divorce.

Myth 4: Women emerge from divorce more emotionally scarred and psychologically damaged than do men.
This is generally not true. Not only are divorced women happier than divorced men, but they are better off emotionally too. In study after study they consistently outscore divorced men on psychological tests to assess emotional health and well-being.

Myth 5: Ex-spouses are highly antagonistic toward one another, even to the point of acting unethically.
Divorced couples, of course, vary widely in the civility of their interactions. But about half of divorced men and women even describe their relationship with their ex-spouse as friendly or cooperative.

Myth 6: Most divorced men can remarry while most divorced women cannot.
It is true that divorced women are less likely than divorced men to want to remarry (after all, they are happier than the men with being divorced). But both groups do remarry at very high rates–and soon. About 80% of divorced men and 75% of divorced women remarry whether or not they have children, and most do so within three years.

Myth 7: The economic consequences of divorce devastate women more than men.
Women are generally worse off financially in the years immediately following a divorce. This has less to do with divorce than with the fact that women generally make less money than men.

Source: “Seven Myths of Divorce” by Jeffrey Lalloway, published at his California Divorce and Family Law blog.

A surprising number of clients tell me during the initial consultation that Arkansas is “not an alimony state.” They are surprised to hear that Arkansas is indeed an alimony state. They are also surprised to hear that alimony is modifiable, much like child support, after the divorce is final. The primary reason for a modification is a change in the parties’ financial condition after the divorce.

The Arkansas Court of Appeals recently provided a good discussion of alimony modification law. Here’s a link to the case…
http://courts.arkansas.gov/court_opinions/coa/2009b/20090930/ca08-1423.pdf

QDROs, Qualified Domestic Relations Orders, are drafted by an attorney, and signed by the judge, usually after the divorce is final. The purpose of the QDRO is to provide one spouse with a portion (usually half) of the other spouse’s retirement account due to the fact that the retirement account is marital property. In a divorce, we divide pretty much everything right? Well, that normally includes retirement accounts.
But retirement accounts present the problem of taxes and penalties if funds are withdrawn from them prior to retirement. A QDRO allows the spouse receiving a portion of the other spouse’s retirement to receive those funds without penalty, PROVIDED that the funds are kept in a similar retirement account and not withdrawn as cash.
Most attorneys hate drafting QDROs for a variety of reasons, primarily because there are numerous pitfalls in the language that is used. The following case illustrates how important it is to monitor the precise language in your QDRO.

Here’s the link…
http://courts.arkansas.gov/court_opinions/coa/2009b/20090930/ca09-111.pdf