Orange County Divorce Lawyer Blog

Legislation introduced in the House last Friday would protect the Orange County or Los Angeles County child custody arrangements of deployed military service members.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), would prohibit a judge from considering certain military deployments in determining the best interest of the child. Also, if custody were temporarily transferred to another person during a service member's deployment, arrangements would return to pre-deployment status upon his or her return.

Currently, courts use military deployments against service members when determining custody rights, said Thomas Crosson, a spokesman for Turner.

To qualify, military orders would have to prohibit the accompaniment of family members, such as on combat assignments, and be between 60 days and 18 months in length.

The bill, which was referred to the Veterans Affairs committee, would add a provision to the 2003 Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

The language has passed the House six times since 2008 but has gotten hung up in the Senate, Crosson said.

We will see how this legislation measures up in the future. In the meantime, if you are a militay service member and would like help in filing for a Los Angeles or Orange County divorce, contact an Orange County divorce lawyer for more information.

Source: Proposal would protect custody rights during deployment

The military divorce rate reached its highest level since 1999, as nearly 30,000 marriages ended 2011. This raises the presumption that troop withdrawals may lead to more divorce, according to interviews and Pentagon data released last Tuesday.

"As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw down, we're going to put more families together who haven't been used to being together," says Chaplain Carleton Birch, a spokesman for the Army Office of the Chief of Chaplains.

The overall military divorce rate of 3.7% this year edged out the most recent U.S. civilian rate recorded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2009 of 3.5%, which has been in decline since 2000.

The Army divorce rate of 3.7% and the Navy's 3.6% are the highest for either service since 2004.

The Air Force rate of 3.9% is the highest in more than two decades. Nearly 5% of marriages among Air Force enlisted personnel ended in divorce this year.

Split marriages were most common among enlisted women across the military, with nearly one in 10 marriages within this group ending this year.

The Marine Corps divorce rate of 3.8% remained the same as 2010, Pentagon data shows.

From an Orange County divorce lawyer's perspective, going through a divorce while trying to end a war in another part of the world is definitely tough. This is why hiring an Orange County divorce lawyer to litigate your divorce in either Orange County or Los Angeles County will help with the stress of divorce.

Contact an Orange County divorce lawyer for more information on obtaining a divorce.

Source: Military divorce rate at highest level since 1999

A fascinating article which appeared on the Huffington Post earlier this month seeks to shine a light on military divorce. That is a welcome change. Military divorce is an issue that has received too little attention here in Orange County and elsewhere around the nation despite the fact that the United States is now fighting three wars.

Citing Pentagon data, the article notes that "7.9 percent of women in the armed forces got a divorce last year - versus 3 percent of their male counterparts." It also cites a researcher with the RAND Corporation who says that based on a study of 15 years worth of similar data those numbers "are part of an ongoing trend."

As I have written several times over the last few years, military divorces pose a number of unique issues. They frequently cast their net far wider than California and Orange County. As I noted in a post last month, some states are seeking to treat military pensions differently from other income in ways that could encourage 'jurisdiction shopping' by soon-to-be-ex spouses. Similarly, child custody cases arising from military divorces often cross state lines. This is a complicating factor under any circumstances, but can become much more difficult for mothers and fathers in uniform when their spouse attempts to use deployment, or the possibility of it, as a lever in custody and visitation negotiations.

The RAND researchers cited by the Huffington Post also make the interesting observation that some of the discrepancy between male and female military divorce rates may stem from the fact that while more than "90 percent (of military men) are married to civilians... the majority of married women in the military have spouses who also serve." Military women, in other words, are more likely to be raising families facing the possibility of multiple, or even simultaneous, deployments.

Whether one's spouse is also in uniform or not, it is particularly unfortunate when a soldier, sailor, airman or marine facing the end of a marriage finds their service to our nation used against them in divorce and child custody cases. Military divorce cases, in short, are different from others. In selecting a California or Orange County divorce lawyer it is, therefore, crucial to look for someone with extensive experience working with military families going through divorce - an attorney who is able to appreciate the special circumstances that come with life in uniform.

Huffington Post: Divorce rate for women in military double that of men