If you have minor children, you will need to start thinking about how child custody will be resolved in your case. You and your ex always have the option of coming together and agreeing to a custody arrangement beforehand. If the parties cannot agree, then the court will decide child custody by looking at the "best interests of the child." The court does not worry as much about what the parents want, rather, they focus on what is in the "best interests of the child." For child custody, you will need to decide who has physical custody of child and when. You can view sample visitation charts here. Next, you will need to decide who has final decision-making authority for school, medical, extracurricular, and religious decisions for the child.

Child Custody is often a hotly contested area and while people are often able to agree on other areas of their divorce, child custody can often times be more difficult. During this time, be cautious not to fight and argue in front of the children. If you're having trouble talking to your kids about the situation, you can read our article on telling the children here. Remember, hiring an experienced Woodstock divorce attorney will likely increase your chances of getting the custody arrangement that works best for your family. You don't have to do this alone, Meriwether & Tharp is here to guide you.

Alimony is not right for every case. While some states have an alimony formula, in Georgia there is no formula for determining alimony. Alimony is determined by considering if the receiving party has a "need" for alimony and if the paying spouse has the financial ability to ''pay." Our experienced Woodstock alimony attorneys are well versed in completing the "need vs. ability to pay" analysis. For our analysis, we use proprietary tools like our in-house "Alimony Calculator."

In Georgia, the division of property, assets and debts accrued during the marriage is called equitable division. Many people don't realize that Georgia is not a community property state, meaning that you won't automatically get half of everything. In Georgia, your property, assets and debts will be divided equitably, not equally. For example, this distinction means that after considering several factors the judge could decide to split martial assets up 60/40 or even 70/30. The split will depend on what the judge considers to be "equitable." Without an experienced lawyer guiding you, the decision that the judge could make is relatively unpredictable. To increase your chances of getting a fair split of your assets and retirement, consider hiring one of our Woodstock equitable division attorneys.

How are you supposed to select the best divorce lawyer for you when divorce lawyers tend to say the same things?

Is it possible the traditional method could actually be making things worse?