WisconsinFamily Lawyers

Attorney Kathleen Reiley devotes her law practice to helping people with family law issues. The term "family law" is often associated with "divorce", but it is a broad term that helps to categorize the many legal issues of a person's lifetime including forming a family through marriage or cohabitation, dissolving a marriage through divorce or a cohabitation relationship through termination, adopting a step-child, obtaining or changing legal custody or physical placement of a child, paternity adjudication, or obtaining visitation rights as a grandparent.

Why Hire A Family Lawyer?

People confer with family law attorneys for a variety of reasons including mediation, litigation, and disputes concerning finances, real estate, other property or debt, divorce, grandparent visitation, and child support and family support. In essence, family law encompasses a vast body of law that affects personal relationships. A family law attorney actually possesses a doctorate in law, so you might say that a family lawyer helps you to protect your legal health by providing you with sound legal advice and helping you to pursue the right legal avenues. Just as a medical doctor helps you to protect your medical health by providing you with sound medical advice and helping you pursue the right medical tests and prescriptions.

About Family Law & Divorce in Wisconsin

The term "family law" is a very general and broad term that refers to all of the areas of law listed below. Twenty years ago, a family was traditionally comprised of a mother, a father, and their children. Today, the "family" can mean a traditional family, but it can also mean a man and a woman cohabitating, or domestic partners of the same sex, or family members or close family freinds raising the children of others.

Wisconsin Law Changes

Recently the voters of the state of Wisconsin passed a state constitutional amendment presented to the voters as follows: "Marriage. Shall section 13 of article XIII of the constitution be created to provide that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state and that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state?"

The passage of this amendment may have a potentially sweeping impact on unmarried cohabiting and separating couples, whether they are same sex or opposite sex couples, including in areas of property, debt, health insurance benefits that were previously offered by employers to employees in civil unions, access to sick or dying partners. It remains to be seen how if at all this amendment will affect the rights of children to access to same sex adults who have been significant in their support and rearing. The paternity statutes will protect the children who are the children of a mother and father who are splitting.

The case law on which cohabiting couples have previously been able to rely will no doubt be challenged and new law will have to be made in the coming years as the citizens of this State experience the true impact of this amendment.

Frequently Used Family Law & Divorce Terms

There are many terms used to define divorce, so lets take a moment to unscramble the misnomers.

Contested -v- Uncontested

Divorces are sometimes referred to as "contested" or "uncontested". Every action involves a set of issues that must be resolved. When the parties are unable to resolve their differences and require a court to make up their minds for them, then the matter, or the unresolved issues, is "contested." Sometimes parties are able to resolve some of the issues and not all of them. Those unresolved issues are tried. When parties are able to commit their resolutions to the issues in a stipulation or agreement, then there is a hearing at which they put their agreement on the record before the court, testify as to jurisdictional facts that permit the court to act. When there is a full resolution by the parties, those matters are "uncontested."

Litigated, Collaborative, Cooperative

Trial litigated divorce involves a trial with a judge. Collaborative divorce involves a contractual agreement not to litigate. Cooperative divorce is simply good practice when all of the attorneys and parties are acting in the same spirit.

Alimony -v- Spousal Support -v- Family Maintenance

The terms "alimony" and "spousal support" are sometimes used to refer to the support paid by one spouse to another spouse. However, the word "alimony" does not even appear in Wisconsin law, and the laws of the state do not recognize "spousal support". In Wisconsin, support is either child support paid to contribute to the care of a minor child or a child who meets the terms of the agreements approved by the court, or it is family maintenance.

Divorce

Divorce is the term used to describe the process of dissolving the bonds of marriage. In order for the laws of the state of Wisconsin to apply to a divorce matter, one or both of the spouses must be legal residents of the state of Wisconsin. Attorney Kathleen Reiley limits her divorce practice to the stte of Wisconsin, and most frequently represents people whose cases would be heard in a southern Wisconsin county (please refer to the courts page). For more information, please refer to Wisconsin divorce or geographic focus of the law practice of Attorney Kathleen Reiley.

Mediation

Mediation is an alternative legal process through which people are able to discuss the issues between them that are disputed and come to an agreed-upon resolution. For more information about mediation and how you can use this effective alternative, please visit mediation, or information about mediation for domestic partner disputes or dispute resolution and mediation for same sex relationships.

Paternity

Paternity is the legal process used to establish the father of a child. In most instances, a party seeks to establish paternity in order to obtain a court order for support of a minor child. For more information about paternity suits, please visit paternity.

Custody

While the terms "custody" and "visitation" are often used in general conversations and readily interchanged, legal custody of a child refers to the legal obligations of making decisions about a minor child, and legal custody refers to the actual placement of a child into the home of one or both parents. For more information about custody, please visit legal placement or physical placement.

Support

Child support is the financial support paid by a non-custodial parent to a custodial parent for the care of the parents' child. Wisconsin laws do not recognize alimony; rather, Wisconsin laws provide for family maintenance. In some instances, a court orders child support payments to be made to a non-custodial parent, such as when a grandparent or a foster home has been granted custody of a child. For more information about support, please visit child support or family maintenance

Grandparent's Rights

Grandparents have rights, too, and many grandparents have sought the advice of Attorney Reiley when they want to establish their rights to visitation with their grandchildren. For many years, Attorney Kathleen Reiley has been helping grandparents obtain the court's order to ensure their ability to maintain a close relationship with their grandchild. Attorney Kathleen Reiley limits her practice to the state of Wisconsin, so in these types of situations, one of the parties - the grandparent, the child, or a parent with legal custody of the child - must be a resident of the state of Wisconsin. For more information, please visit grandparent's visitation rights.

If you are considering a divorce, require assistance with the legal disputes between you and your domestic partner, want to obtain legal custody or physical placement of your child, want to invoke your rights as a grandparent to visit with your grandchild, need to pursue a paternity order, or want to speak with an attorney for legal advice on mediation or how the laws of the state of Wisconsin will affect you, please call Attorney Kathleen Reiley (608-246-8309) or send her an email.