Ann Arbor Divorce Law Blog

A couple, who has been married most of the 27 years they've been together, has decided to divorce. Negative reasons drive most couples to end a marriage, but not this pair. For the husband and wife, who have endured years of financial difficulties, obtaining a divorce agreement is the only financial option they have.

For the many Michigan couples facing financial hardship, divorce could be an option. Others have put off getting divorced because they're worried about the costs. There are more affordable ways to get divorced, such as a no-fault divorce or using mediation.

Fathers' rights in child custody disputes are supposed to be equal to mothers' rights. Courts, who in the past defaulted custody to mothers, are slowly recognizing that a parent's gender is not an automatic reason to make a spouse the primary custodian.

Despite a growing societal acceptance of men's parenting capabilities and legal custody rights, experts say the male gender remains at a disadvantage in many family law courtrooms. Judges, who once gave instant custody to mothers, sometimes still treat fathers with bias out of habit.

Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan has a problem with a formerly married couple's religious divorce. The issue is not with Camp's own Catholic marriage, but the Jewish divorce of one of his aides.

The aide is an Orthodox Jew, who divorced his wife two years ago without giving her a "get," a religious document that equals divorce from an Orthodox Jewish husband. Without it, a woman cannot remarry as an Orthodox Jew even if she has obtained a legal divorce, which the couple has done. Refusals are rare in the U.S. Orthodox Jewish husbands sometimes withhold religious divorce permission for leverage. Some media reports say the stubborn aide is holding back the "get" to sway his former wife over child custody and visitation issues.

A toddler was removed from his parent's home after police shot and killed the boy's father. Authorities say the shooting death of the 32-year-old father was justifiable because the man wielded a pocketknife with a four-inch blade and lunged toward Child Protective Service workers and police.

The incident began over a child custody dispute. CPS workers, aided by city police officers, tried to follow through with a court order to remove the man's 2-year-old son from his Grayling Pines apartment.