Cynthia L. Hanley Law Blog

Payment for Extracurricular Activities The payment for extracurricular activities is generally agreed upon by both the parties. Both parents really do have the best interest for their children at heart and they know what’s important to the child. If it’s a sport or activity that the child really enjoys, they can generally work that out. […]

Mediated Divorces In the United States, researchers estimate that 40%–50% of all first marriages will end in divorce. Your divorce does not have to be financially or emotionally destructive. In Massachusetts, the role of the mediator is to help both parties come to an agreement on all the issues involved in a divorce, and to […]

Maintaining Life Insurance In most cases, life insurance is maintained by both parties post-divorce. In regard to the payer spouse, we advise the payer spouse to maintain life insurance in an amount sufficient to cover child support payments from the date of divorce to the date the child will be emancipated. There are many other […]

Inheritance Division in a Divorce An inheritance in divorce is divided by the court. They have the right to divide it 50-50. They may also allocate it differently. In general, if an inheritance is traceable to the person that received it, then the court would not divide that 50-50, especially if the inheritance was received […]

When Your Spouse Receives a Bonus… Bonuses are typically considered for child support purposes. It is how the court treats them that varies from case to case. Bonuses gross income, just like any other income a spouse receives under the child support guidelines. In fact, there’s a huge list of things that are considered income. […]

Division of Assets and Debts A marital estate in a divorce in Massachusetts that is subject to division by the court consists of all the assets and debts from the marriage. The marital estate is anything you have or anything you owe. These assets and debts may or may not get divided 50-50 depending on […]

Dependency Exemptions in Massachusetts Dependency exemptions for the children are allocated between the parties by the court, and it depends on the relative income of both parties. If there is a situation where one party would be “wasting” the exemption, that means it has no beneficial impact on the amount of taxes that they have […]