Family Law News

Pittsburgh ranks #325 and Philadelphia ranks #360 in a recent survey of the wealthiest American cities, conducted by Portfolio.com, a website operated by American Business Journals, publisher of the Pittsburgh Business Times. Allentown ranks #392, Erie ranks 412, and Reading ranks dead last at #420 in the survey.

A quick glance at the statistics cited by the survey reveals serious flaws. In its ranking of Pittsburgh, for instance, the survey lists the population as 297,187. This means that the survey completely overlooked the population of suburban communities like Fox Chapel, Upper St. Clair, Sewickley and Mt. Lebanon. Only City boroughs such as Shadyside and Squirrel Hill were considered in the wealth survey.

Presumably, the Philadelphia survey only included the City of Philadelphia and not the affluent suburban communities in Bucks County, Montgomery County, Chester County, or Southern New Jersey. Again, these flaws would cause one to question the validity of the rankings.

The Portfolio.com survey claims that the median home value was $86,000 and the median household income was $36,709 in Pittsburgh. Yet these statistics only include the City proper. In Sewickley, the 2008 median home value was $169,960 (from city-data.com) and the median household income was $50,414. In Fox Chapel, the 2008 median home value was $574,280 and the medial household income was $187,530. In Upper St. Clair, the median home value was $243,880 and the median household income was $111,502.

It is not possible to understand the economics of Pittsburgh or Philadelphia without considering their suburban communities.

The Guardian ran a news story today about a London department store where they’ve established a new kind of gift registry …. for divorcees. Perceptively, the Debenhams department store realized that newly-separated people need toasters, towels and china, just like fiancees. Apparently England was also the site of the recent “Starting Over” show, a divorce version of a bridal show. These phenomenon were cited by the article’s author as harbingers of a trend toward celebration of divorce, instead of commiseration.  Ironically, the author’s name was Lisa Bachelor.

A new application developed for iPhone – ironically called iTrust – records the keystrokes of an unwitting interloper when the application is activated. For the price of a mere 99 cents, iPhone users can discovery tampering by a spouse or loved one who is trying to snoop on the user’s call history, text messages or email.

Oh, if only Tiger Woods had known.

Full story on iTrust reported in the London Telegraph.

A constellation of Rising Stars has ascended! My law firm, Pollock Begg Komar Glasser LLC, is proud to announce that four of our associates – Stephanie Jablon, Dana Levine, Ben Orsatti and Angel Revelant – were named as SuperLawyers Rising Stars. Congratulations to Stephanie, Dana, Ben and Angel for this recognition of their hard work and dedication to the practice of family law.

My friend Cheryl Hepfer appeared on a recent episode of the ABC News program “Nightline” to discuss how marital cheaters are being caught these days: their racy text messages. Like lipstick on a man’s collar in days of yore, text messages are alerting spouses to their loved ones’ infidelity.

Tiger Woods is a good example. His wife Elin Nordegren learned about his cheating when she viewed text messages sent by one of Tiger’s girlfriends. Now the couple is heading for divorce, according to news sources. 

Video of the Nightline story here.

The Supreme Court of North Dakota has been asked to decide whether breast implants should be identified as marital property and valued for divorce purposes. Clearly, the owner’s husband is the advocate of this novel argument. His lawyer argued that the expense should be included in instances when a medical expense is “clearly cosmetic, elective, (and) non-necessary.” Insurance companies often make those judgments in deciding what to cover, she said.

The trial judge reported to news sources that he considered the argument to be frivolous. “I can’t imagine people would actually waste time thinking that breast implants are marital assets. It just defies common sense,” the judge stated. “I don’t know how you would expect me to award breast implants, if you want me to have them cut out and given to Mr. Isaacson. It is absolutely nonsense.”

The implant owner’s husband valued the implants at $5,500. No word on whether they might depreciate over time.

The Chicago Sun-Times, Huffington Post, and The Daily Beast are reporting that Elin Nordegren, the wife of golfing billionaire Tiger Woods, is demanding that Woods renegotiate the terms of their prenuptial agreement after learning of Woods’ multiple infidelities. Under their 2004 agreement, Woods allegedly agreed to pay Nordegren the sum of $20 million if they should separate after ten years of marriage. The recent news reports claim that Nordegren is now demanding $55 million to stay with Woods for another two years, seven years in total.

If the reports are true, why would Woods agree to such terms?  The obvious answer would be “to induce Nordegren to commit to marital reconciliation.” Yet, a less obvious, perhaps more cynical answer would be “to let the negative publicity abate before announcing that the couple is divorcing.” By letting the media firestorm subside, even temporarily until the couple can make a plausible announcement about having attempted to reconcile, Woods might be able to preserve his valuable sponsorships. Pure speculation on my part, sure, but if his sponsorship worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year were at stake, wouldn’t it make sense to throw a little money her way?

News sources are reporting (here and here) that Italian prime minister and TV-network billionaire Silvio Berlusconi may be facing an alimony obligation as great as $65 million per year. Berlusconi and his wife (who is 20 years his junior) have been married for nearly 20 years and estranged for at least 2 years. Berlusconi’s numerous public infidelities have deepened the rift between him and his wife. Berlusconi and his wife have two grown children.

Each year I am one of the broadcast presenters for Family Law Update, one of the most-watched legal education courses for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. We make live presentations in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, followed by a satellite broadcast to nearly two dozen counties around Pennsylvania. Traditionally, I have presented the most recent cases involving child support, spousal support and alimony pendente lite.

The Pittsburgh live presentation will be given tomorrow (October 23, 2009), with the satellite broadcast to be given on November 18, 2009. The book is available on PBI’s website, and I publish my Powerpoint slides here.

Update: I have added a page to this site with my Powerpoint slides.

This weekend I attended the second annual Divorce Summit sponsored by Business Valuation Resources, one of the leading publishers in the bizval field. On Thursday, September 24, 2009, we heard The View from the Bench, giving voice to a group of family law judges from New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, and elsewhere. One of the standouts was the Hon. Edward Jordan, a family law calendar control judge from Cook County, Illinois. His commentary was insightful and pithy, and I was enchanted by the notion of a calendar control judge who could dispatch cases ready for trial to the judges within a few short weeks. 

When the judges had had their say, it was the lawyers’ turn. A panel of AAML divorce lawyers informed the assembly of bizval professionals “What Lawyers Expect from their Financial Experts.”  The breakout sessions on Thursday and Friday were stellar, starting with “Reasonable Compensation in Divorce” by Ron Signeur and Sharyn Maggio. One of the most useful discussions, in my mind, was the itemized lists of criteria that experts and courts may consider when determining reasonable compensation (hint: article forthcoming).

Another of my favorite breakout sessions was Chris Mercer’s and Ashok Abbott’s  seminar on “Active vs. Passive Appreciation.” In most states other than Pennsylvania, the divorce courts distinguish two types of increase in the value of separate assets. Appreciation in value that results from the efforts of a spouse during the marriage are regarded as separate property, while appreciation due to passive factors such as inflation is part of the marital estate. In Pennsylvania, a corollary concept is the Adelstein argument (where a nonmarital asset has experienced a post-separation increase in value). Mercer presented one of the most compelling analyses I have seen on this issue, quantifying the specific dollar amount of passive and active increase based upon the Gordon Growth present value formula. It was brilliant, and in my opinion, just the starting point of an important development in BV technique (hint: another article forthcoming!).

A Friday breakout on “Transmutation and Tracing” was informative and timely, given the proliferation of this concept in divorce litigation. Fact: some litigants in California are commissioning a forensic accounting of their entire marriage to determine whether property was acquired with community funds or separate funds. 

The Thornhill case (in which Colorado refused to adopt a fair value standard in matrimonial litigation) was highlighted in several presentations. I must say this conference was one of the best I have attended in some time.