Family Law Services
The attorneys of Laputka, Bayless, Ecker, & Cohn are highly skilled at navigating the areas of family law, including divorce, alimony, and child support. For more information concerning our family law services, contact Attorney John M. Gallagher.
Our areas of family law practice include:
Divorce
Pennsylvania law contains provisions for no-fault and fault divorces. Specifically, the court may grant a divorce under the following circumstances:
- Fault – The court may grant a divorce to the innocent and injured spouse under circumstances surrounding desertion, adultery, cruel and barbarous treatment, bigamy, a spouse being sentenced to imprisonment for two or more years, or other indignities.
- Institutionalization
- Mutual consent – The court may grant a divorce wherein a marriage is agreed to be irretrievably broken. Ninety (90) days must have elapsed from the date of the commencement of an action under the Divorce Code, and an affidavit must have been filed by each of the parties stating that each consents to the divorce.
- Irretrievable breakdown – If two years have elapsed since the separation of the parties, one party can unilaterally take steps to receive a divorce.
Equitable division of marital property
In the context of a divorce, division of property and debt must be accomplished through a settlement or court adjudication. The first step in this process is determining what assets are considered marital property and what debts are considered marital debt. The second step uses factors including the length of the marriage, earning capacity, and the health of the parties to determine the percentage for division of both marital assets and debt.
Alimony and support
Before a divorce is finalized, the spouse who is exercising primary or partial physical custody of children may petition the court for child support. Additionally, a spouse with lesser earnings and/or lesser earning capacity may petition the court for spousal support or temporary alimony before the finalization of the divorce.
Pennsylvania courts use specific guidelines enacted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to determine the amount of child support, spousal support, and/or temporary alimony. As part of the finalization of a divorce, the court may order permanent alimony to be paid by one spouse for a variety of factors, including length of marriage, relative earnings, and the health of the parties.
Child custody
Under Pennsylvania law, child custody involves any unemancipated person under 18 years of age, whether born in or out of wedlock.
Pennsylvania law recognizes two aspects of child custody: legal custody and physical custody.
Legal custody is the legal right to make major decisions affecting the best interest of the minor child, including but not limited to medical, religious, and educational decisions. The courts generally order shared legal custody between parents of a child, as legal custody is mutually exclusive from the concept of physical custody.
Physical custody is the actual physical possession and control of the child. Under normal circumstances, each parent will have periods of partial physical custody. More often than not, one parent will have primary physical custody of a child. Additionally, Pennsylvania recognizes the concept of child visitation. That is merely the right to visit a child. It does not include the right to remove a child from the custodial parent’s control.
Abuse of family
Pennsylvania law provides for the protection of abused individuals under the Protection From Abuse Act. “Abuse” is defined as “The occurrence of one or more of the following acts between family or household members, sexual or intimate partners or persons who share biological parenthood:- attempting to cause or intentionally, knowingly or recklessly causing bodily injury, serious bodily injury, rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault or incest with or without a deadly weapon;
- placing another in reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury;
- the infliction of false imprisonment […];
- physically or sexually abusing minor children […];
- knowingly engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts towards another person, including following the person, without proper authority, under circumstances which place the person in reasonable fear of bodily injury.”