New York Divorce Law Blog : New York Divorce Lawyer & Attorney : Law Offices of David A. Gabay, PC : Serving New York City, Long Island, Suffolk County, Nassau County

I have decided to charge flat fees for all of my divorce and family law cases-contested and uncontested-from now on, and here is why:

1.      Flat fees are better for my clients and my office. The client knows exactly what he or she will pay, and I know exactly what I will receive. There is less tension between my clients and my office over fees, billing, and communications. If a doctor can manage to charge a flat fee for major surgery, I can certainly manage to properly estimate a fee for a divorce.

2.      Flat fees provide an incentive for my office to focus more thoroughly on the case and the client than on billing. This will result in better outcomes for clients, which is ultimately better for my office.

3.      Clients hire attorneys for their knowledge and expertise, they do not rent them by the hour like power tools from Home Depot-or at least they should not. I have come to the conclusion that I can, actually, estimate the time and complexity of a case if my client and I can have a detailed consultation where the client provides reasonably accurate information about his or her life and situation.

4.      I think clients will enthusiastically embrace this new way of doing business, which will ultimately benefit my office.

So, I guess I will soon learn whether this new idea of mine will succeed or fail. I will keep writing about my experiences with this new practice model in future posts.

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One question which arises frequently in my practice is whether a non-custodial parent can terminate his or her child support obligations by ‘signing away’ his or her ‘rights’ to the child.  How and why a parent gets to the point of seriously considering abandoning their own child is an issue for another day, but the answer to the question is (like almost anything else in New York family law) yes….and no.

1.       Child support is a legal obligation each parent owes directly to a child, and cannot normally be bargained away by the parents.

2.      Visitation and custody rights are separate from the duty of a parent to support their children, so surrendering custody or waiving visitation will never directly affect the payment of child support.

That being said, there are two (2) ways for a non-custodial parent to voluntarily terminate his or child support payments:

1.      Under certain limited circumstances, a judge may approve of a waiver of child support payments for ‘good cause’ and the custodial parent consents to the waiver.

What constitutes ‘good cause’ is a question only the judge assigned to the case can answer, and in my experience each judge has his or her own practices and criteria for deciding whether to approve a waiver request.

2.      Adoption of the child by a step parent or other appropriate person. If the parent paying child support consents to the adoption of the child by another adult (usually the new step-parent of the child), the completion of the adoption automatically terminates the child support obligation of the former parent.

For more information on child support and other New York divorce and family law subjects or to discuss your own questions or case, please visit my website at www.GabayLawFirm.com

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Divorce is a complicated process even under the best of circumstances. However, when your soon to be ex spouse is an attorney you can face very special challenges and problems on the way to obtaining a fair and equitable settlement or decision after trial. 

Here is a list of the top three problems faced by spouses divorcing attorneys:

1.      The Attorney is Known Throughout the Courthouse: If your spouse works regularly in Court, he or she may be well known to the Court and its staff. Even if the spouse works in a different area of the law, say criminal defense or civil litigation, judges and their staffs talk informally among themselves and Courthouse gossip is rampant. This might be the only case in a divorce setting in which the Court is familiar with one of the parties professionally but does not consider recusal. In this case, you and your attorney will have to work extra hard and be extra careful in how you handle your case.

2.        Valuation of the Law Practice: Attorneys whose spouses make a claim for a portion of the value of the law practice tend to raise the same objections time and time again: (1) that the practice has little or no value because it depends entirely on their own efforts and work, (2) that the contingent receivables can’t be accurately valued because of the uncertainties of the cases, and (3) that attorney-client privilege prevents the full disclosure of the information required to properly value the practice.  These arguments can be effectively defeated if your attorney is familiar with the specific rules and case law which govern this issue.

3.        Income “Management”: Attorneys who are planning to divorce their spouse or who know that they will be served with a divorce summons themselves use a wide variety of techniques to manage their income to their advantage. Changes to partnership agreements, decisions to reduce partnership compensation, deferral of revenue, referral and routing of work through other attorneys, and cash fees are familiar ruses designed to depress the income of the attorney and therefore lower the amount of money paid out in spousal support, child support, and equitable distribution. Like the valuation problem, this issue can be effectively countered with aggressive and thorough discovery and an understanding of how to identify and uncover income management in all of its forms.

For more information or to schedule a consultation, please visit my firm’s website at www.GabayLawFirm.com

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