New York has No Fault Divorce - At Last

Governor Patterson has just signed the no fault divorce bill, bringing New York in line with the other 49 states in the U.S. The bill establishes a ground for divorce based upon one spouse averring that the marriage has "irretrievably" broken down for at least six months. The text of the bill can be found here. This law will eliminate the legal blackmail described in an earlier post.

Two other bills were also signed by the Governor. The first requires payment of counsel and expert fees to the non-monied spouse. The text of the bill can be found here.

Finally, the Governor signed a controversial measure that provides guidelines for temporary maintenance payments while a divorce case proceeds in court. For the full text of that bill, click here.

I will be providing an in depth analysis of these new laws in a future post. Stay tuned.

My Divorce

Perhaps you were wondering why I haven't posted since May of last year. The reason is simple - I myself was getting divorced, and my ex-wife's various attorneys were quoting my own blog against me.

Now that my case has settled (on the eve of trial and after 20 months of largely useless litigation), I am free to once more hold forth on the state of our system of divorce. Putting it bluntly - it sucks! As Alec Baldwin said in his book, the process is akin to being dragged by a pickup truck down a gravel road. My ex spent tens of thousands of dollars on attorneys fees for no reason at all. Delay after delay, and what she accomplished was to push us both to the brink of financial ruin. My kids suffered horribly, but no one - including my ex, seemed to care.

There simply has to be better way. And no, I am not taking about the no-fault and maintenance bills presently sitting on Governor Patterson's desk (the subject of a future post). I am taking about the system as a whole. It needs a complete overhaul.