Sunday, October 28, 2007

Property divisions - why get a lawyer?

For those who come here looking for how to do your own divorce, for those who want to know why they need a lawyer for your divorce, for those who merely want a succinct description of legal thinking, read IT'S ART NOT SCIENCE from Judith's Divorce Blog:

"When dividing family assets, Judges have discretionary powers which means that guessing the outcome can be interpreted as a stab in the dark. Of course, that’s not really the case. Despite most lawyers’ pedantic insistence on thinking in straight lines and applying pure logic to resolve irrational dilemmas, the family lawyer has elevated such thought processes to another plane where experience, legal knowledge, psychology and human dynamics all intermingle. Hence advising a client on the likely outcome of a court application has to be an art rather than a science."
Yes, it is like that here, too. Reading the statutes and the case law and knowing the fact is only the start. The hard bit comes with combining law and facts and judges.

To bring the discussion back down to my little patch. We have the certainty of a 50-50 presumption for property division. The "fun" part comes in figuring out what property fills up each party's share. Not a science, at all.

You might get more insight into this by reading what else I have written on divorce property issues. To get these articles, please click here.

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