Immigration and Family Law Blog

Grave financial times have typically been busy times for California divorce lawyers. Any Los Angeles family law attorney will tell you that many marriages will collapse under the strain of financial troubles, like those brought on by the recession. However, a new report by the University of Virginia shows that a small percentage of marriages have not only survived the onslaught of the recession, but have actually thrived.

According to the National Marriage Report by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, although many American couples have found their marital bonds weakened under stress since the recession, others have managed to strengthen their commitment to their marriage vows as a result of their financial troubles. Not only have many couples found that the recession has strengthened their commitment to each other, but among those couples who were considering a divorce before the recession, many couples have actually postponed their plans for a divorce.

According to the report, approximately 29% of married Americans said that the recession had brought heavy financial stress on their marriages. However, the same percentage of Americans said that the decision had caused them to deepen their commitment to their marriage. Approximately 38% of those Americans who were planning a divorce before the recession, said that the recession caused them to put aside their plans.

The analysts also rated the respondents as being at a high risk for divorce on a scale of 0 to 10. About 16% of married Americans who said that the recession has caused great financial stress also had a high divorce rate, compared to just 7% of those couples who did not believe that the recession has caused great financial stress.

Some of the most common economic worries among couples were being able to pay bills (34%), and make mortgage payments (12%). Interestingly enough, the recession is most likely to damage those marriages in which the partners do not have a college degree.

It’s the divorce case that has riveted not just California divorce lawyers, but also Los Angeles Dodgers fans and baseball fans around the country. Last week saw the latest twist in that drama, as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge found in favor of Jamie McCourt by throwing out a postnuptial agreement that favored her husband Frank McCourt.

According to a tentative ruling by Judge Scott Gordon, the agreement that would have divided the couple's assets did not meet the requirements of California law. The agreement in question was a postnuptial agreement that would have transferred ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers solely to Frank McCourt. In September, the case involving McCourt and his ex-wife Jamie went to trial. According to Frank McCourt, it was his wife’s idea to have the postnuptial agreement in order to protect her assets from liabilities associated with the purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1994. However, Jamie McCourt alleges that she would never have knowingly and willingly given up her rights to the major league baseball team.

At the center of the mess is the issue of whether there was ever a meeting of the minds over the fate of the Dodgers. The parties produced different versions of the prenuptial document. The attorney who drafted the document admitted that he switched a page of the agreement after the agreement was signed and without notifying either party of the change.  This lawyer claims he did this to make sure that the agreement reflected the intention of both parties. However, the judge has found a serious problem with the fact that this page was switched without informing the parties concerned.

Are people in certain occupations more likely to need California divorce lawyers?  A new study certainly seems to indicate so.  The study which has been published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology compared divorce rates with at least 500 different occupations.   It has some interesting insights into the way our choice of career can impact an individual's personal life.

According to the study, dancers and choreographers have some of the highest divorce rates, while engineers seem to be right at the other end of the spectrum, with some of the lowest divorce rates.  Dancers and choreographers are followed by bartenders with a 38.4% divorce rate, and massage therapists with a 38.2% divorce rate.  They kept company with telephone operators, casino workers and nurses.  Among the occupations with the lowest divorce rates, were optometrists with a 4% divorce rate, clergymen with a 5.6% divorce rate, and podiatrists with a 6.8% divorce rate.

This study doesn't really provide a complete picture of the divorce scene in America.  For instance, the study only looked at those persons who were married at the time of the census.  It didn't consider whether the person had been divorced previously, and had remarried.  It also doesn't draw any conclusions about whether the stresses of certain jobs cause marriages to break down, or whether people who have personalities that may place them at risk for bad relationships are drawn to certain professions.  It's important to understand that there might not even be any link here. 

However, it is a fact that stress can impact your personal life and marriage.  A clergyman has a job that could be much less stressful than, say, a nurse’s job.  This study presents some tantalizing glimpses of how occupations can affect individual personal life, but has few answers.