Massachusetts Divorce Attorney
Serving Throughout Bristol County, Plymouth County & Norfolk County
The Farias Family Law, P.C is a premier Massachusetts Divorce Law Firm with offices in Easton and Fall River, Massachusetts. The firm’s focus is Divorce and Family Law, including divorce, alimony, property division, child support, child custody and visitation, modifications, contempt, prenuptial agreements, etc.
The firm’s foundation is Attorney Bill Farias, who believes that aggressive representation combined with the highest quality client service are the keys to client success. The firm will help you address your immediate family law needs while also helping you develop a plan for long-term success.
Before turning to the law, Attorney Farias also worked for the Department of Children and Families, gaining valuable experience in a variety of areas that translate well to divorce and family law. He worked closely with mental health specialists, behavioral specialists, police, the courts, doctors, school personnel, and parenting coordinators to name a few. This experience helps him more accurately assess your divorce and family law issues and craft effective solutions.
Attorney Farias spent the early part of his legal career developing the litigations skills necessary for an aggressive litigation philosophy. He was a prosecutor for the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office, handling thousands of cases, many of them requiring jury trials and hearings. He accumulated more courtroom experience in a short amount of time than many attorneys will gain in their entire careers. His litigation experience and philosophy are geared toward obtaining leverage in the case to put you in a better position to obtain a more favorable outcome.
A principle upon which the firm is founded is that quality client service is especially important in this area of practice. When people are going through family law issues, they’re at their most vulnerable – short of death or illness, few things impact a person’s life more than family in crisis. The firm’s sensitivity to this reality is what led to the implementation of a structure that ensures that clients are educated, informed, and entitled to the highest level of accessibility for support and questions. You’ll be guided through the process in a manner that makes the experience as smooth as possible.
Preparing for Divorce in Massachusetts
Preparing for divorce can be a challenging and overwhelming experience. Whether you’ve made the decision to end your marriage or are simply exploring your options, it’s essential to educate yourself on the divorce process, your legal rights, and your financial responsibilities. This section provides educational material on how to approach divorce, optimizing your mindset, issues you should consider, uncontested divorces, the role of mediation, and more.
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FAQs About Massachusetts Divorce
Immediately contact an attorney. You have 20 days to respond to the complaint with your position on the divorce and to make requests yourself – the document to file is called an answer and counterclaim. Although this deadline can be extended under certain circumstances, it’s best to act quickly. By the time you receive a divorce summons, you probably should’ve already contacted an attorney, but if you haven’t, you should certainly act quickly once you’re served to ensure you respond in a timely manner and begin to plan your strategy.
If someone refuses to sign divorce papers, the case continues until it eventually becomes time for the court to issue an order or a judgment. No one is forced to sign a divorce agreement. However, absent an agreement, the judge after considering evidence on the contested issues, will decide the issues.
There’s a range of anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of years depending on whether the divorce is contested and the complexity of the issues. An uncontested divorce is processed relatively quickly because there are no contested issues, so the case consists only of filing the necessary documents and having the divorce approved a few weeks later by a judge. A contested divorce, on the other hand, may be resolved within a few weeks if the parties come to an agreement, but it also may take much longer if contested issues require several hearings or a trial.
Gather as much financial information about your spouse as possible (paystubs, bank statements, tax returns, mortgage info, retirement and investment account info, etc.), keep a log of significant events that you may need to accurately recount later, and consult an experienced family law attorney as soon as possible. Some preparation and putting a reliable plan in place now can save you money and aggravation later.
A complaint is filed, the other party is served with a summons and a copy of the complaint, and the case begins. If an issue requires immediate attention (i.e. child custody/visitation/support or alimony), the parties may go to court for temporary orders. During the next phase, information – usually financial – is exchanged between the parties and there are negotiations. If the case is resolved, an agreement is signed and the divorce finalized. If any issues are unresolved, the case proceeds to trial.
This decision could mean the difference between walking away from a marriage with a favorable arrangement and financial stability or struggling for years to come. Use the internet to research attorneys: their reviews, qualifications, and past client experiences. Ask people you trust for recommendations. And hire an attorney that focuses on divorce practice.
It depends. Generally yes, but in some cases, no. In an uncontested divorce, the parties must file their documents in advance and are then scheduled for an uncontested hearing at which they must appear to finalize the divorce. The exception is that either party may request that the court waive their presence for that proceeding. Typically, this happens when one of the parties lives out of state and attending the hearing would cause a hardship. To make the request, the party must file a motion and affidavit with the court requesting permission to not attend the hearing.
Generally, a parent cannot permanently remove a child from the home state without either a court order or consent of the other parent. Cases in which a parent wants to permanently move out of state with the children are called “removal” cases, and there is a specific analysis used by the court to address the issue.
A parent should wait until some time has passed after separation from the other parent before introducing the children to another partner. There’s no exact amount of time that parties are required to wait. It depends on the specific facts and circumstances of the particular case. However, generally, judges expect parents to avoid confusing children by introducing them to other partners so soon after separation.
There’s no magic number as to how long to wait before introducing a child to a new significant other after the separation between parents. But, generally, parents should wait sometime before introducing the children to significant others. Separation can be traumatizing to children, and seeing parents with new significant others so quickly after a split can be confusing and disruptive to a child. Specifically how long to wait depends on the overall cooperation of the parents, the stability of the child, the age and maturity of the child, and whether the child has a counselor or other individual to help the child understand the changes in family dynamics, among other factors. As a rule of thumb, a party should wait at least a few months after separation before introducing the child to a significant other.
Immediately contact an attorney. You have 20 days to respond to the complaint with your position on the divorce and to make requests yourself – the document to file is called an answer and counterclaim. Although this deadline can be extended under certain circumstances, it’s best to act quickly. By the time you receive a divorce summons, you probably should’ve already contacted an attorney, but if you haven’t, you should certainly act quickly once you’re served to ensure you respond in a timely manner and begin to plan your strategy.
Retirement funds, like all marital property, is subject to division in MA. The principle that determines how the funds are divided is called “equitable distribution,” which essentially means the court aims to divide the properly “fairly,” which does not necessarily mean equally. In some cases, the marital property is divided equally, but in others, one party is awarded more than the other. There are a number of factors involved in the property division analysis. Once it’s determined how the retirement money will be divided, the money in a 401K or IRA, for example, is usually transferred by rolling it over into an account for the other spouse. If it’s a pension, documents called Qualified Domestic Relations Orders are processed to legally grant the recipient spouse a right to a certain percentage of the pension when it’s eventually paid out.
It depends. Inherited property is technically subject to division in MA because ALL property that either party owns at the time of divorce is part of the “marital pot.” However, the party inheriting the property may get a credit for it, depending on the circumstances. For example, if the property was inherited before the marriage and it was kept separately, the recipient has a better chance of keeping all of it. Similarly, if the property was inherited at the tail end of the marriage, close to or after the time of filing for divorce, there’s also a higher probability that the recipient will keep all of it. Generally, the longer the marriage and the more intertwined the inheritance became with the marital finances, the more likely it is to be subject to division.
If someone refuses to sign divorce papers, the case continues until it eventually becomes time for the court to issue an order or a judgment. No one is forced to sign a divorce agreement. However, absent an agreement, the judge after considering evidence on the contested issues, will decide the issues.
There’s a range of anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of years depending on whether the divorce is contested and the complexity of the issues. An uncontested divorce is processed relatively quickly because there are no contested issues, so the case consists only of filing the necessary documents and having the divorce approved a few weeks later by a judge. A contested divorce, on the other hand, may be resolved within a few weeks if the parties come to an agreement, but it also may take much longer if contested issues require several hearings or a trial.
A pension is considered marital property and is therefore subject to division. The longer the marriage and the more value the pension accrued during the marriage, the more likely it is that the ex-spouse will be entitled to a portion of it.
You should have an experienced divorce attorney review your divorce decree and advise you on its modifiability. Some provisions, especially those related to children are modifiable under certain circumstances. However, others, namely property division and sometimes alimony, may not be modifiable.
