Law Blog

In recent years it has become more common for divorcing spouses to agree to jointly engage one expert to value the marital interest in a business or professional practice.  While choosing one expert is not suitable for all situations, the potential benefits of using one expert include saving time in the process, reducing the cost of the valuation and increasi...

As far as the outcome is concerned, it should make no difference which party chooses to file the petition for divorce.  However, one of the parties is able to control the process, the person filing (known as the Petitioner) is ultimately able to control the initial portion of their dissolution case. Advantages of Being the Petitioner Firstly, at any proceedin...

In the State of Arizona, any and all property is presumed to be community property. However, property is characterized at the time of its acquisition and therefore, if you owned property prior to your marriage, it is and remains your separate property – unless you gifted same to your spouse, entered an agreement to transfer same to your spouse, or commi...

If you used to think that SOPA was a misspelling of soap, after January 18th, 2012 you know better. What is now being called, National SOPA Blackout Day, the internet was flooded with thousands of articles, hundreds of petitions and most chilling to many users - blocked websites. Wikipedia shut down its services for the day and Google's home screen icon contained ...

In today's world, fewer marriages exist and more people are cohabitating in committed relationships for various reasons. Arizona's community property laws do not apply to the ownership of real property between unmarried individuals.  This limits the way in which title can be held, but also raises additional issues, such as what happens to the property upon th...

Requests for Admission are written statements of fact which are submitted to an adverse party in a divorce proceeding which that party is required to admit or deny. They can be an effective and efficient way to establish facts and limit the amount of unresolved issues for trial. Any party to a divorce action has the right to serve on a written Request for Admissio...

When faced with a contract dispute, parties frequently hire attorneys and use the court system to resolve their dispute.  However, there is an alternative dispute mechanism - Binding Arbitration - which is available to resolve disputes if the parties have already agreed to use that method of dispute resolution.  In boilerplate contract language, binding a...

Arizona is a community property state which means all property acquired by either spouse during the marriage is, by statute, presumed to be community property. The characterization of property as either sole and separate property or community property is established at the time the property is acquired. Accordingly, in divorces when one of the spouses is the owner...

The amount of time it takes for a divorce to be finalized is different in everyone's case and is driven by a variety of factors.  One of the most important factors is whether other professionals need to be brought into the case such as custody evaluators or business appraisers. This will take more time, as they play an important role in helping to provide inf...

Whenever a privately held business is among the assets in a dissolution proceeding, certain fundamental issues must be addressed in the context of determining the value of the business. [1]If the business is relatively small in terms of the gross revenue it generates, the first issue is often whether the business is worth valuing. The cost of having a qualified pr...