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November was National Adoption Month. Currently, almost 15,000 children are in foster care in Illinois. Many potential adoptive parents are members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community and may have questions about the laws in Illinois around adoption, whether through foster care or another way. If you are thinking about adoption, you should work with a skilled adoption lawyer who can help you navigate the process.
Illinois Same Sex Adoptions Increasing
Chicago City Wire recently spoke with an employee from the Illinois Center for Adoption and Permanency, who noted that there has been a 22 percent increase this year in same-sex couples who want to adopt one of the children with whom the organization works. Agencies such as this one have specifically been targeting the LGBTQ community for recruitment of adoptive parents, especially as prospective adoptive parents of children in foster care.
NOTE: As of July 2017, the law governing child support in Illinois has changed. Please see our Child Support page for more information.
If you are considering divorce or are in the process of a divorce, you may have questions regarding child support. However, every situation is different. Therefore, it is important to speak with a skilled child support attorney who can assess your situation and help answer your questions.
How Much Child Support Will I Pay?
If you are not the parent with whom the child lives, you will most likely have to pay child support. The amount that you will pay will depend on the number of children you have, your income, and any special circumstances. Illinois lays out percentages of income based on the number of shared children: One child requires 20 percent, two children require 28 percent, three children require 32 percent, and four children require 40 percent. However, this is just the base amount and the court may make changes based on the needs of the child, the income of the parents, and any other relevant factors.
As technology has progressed, more people are using these advances to help with conception. Different assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques allow single people, LGBT people, and couples struggling with infertility to have biological children. ART includes such techniques as in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, and sperm donation through known or unknown donors.
While ART is becoming more common, the law is slow to catch up and ART may bring up new questions for the law to address, including paternity. If you are considering using ART to conceive, or are thinking about helping other people conceive as a surrogate or sperm or egg donor, you should work with a knowledgeable parentage attorney to make sure that you understand your rights, responsibilities, and obligations under the law.
Illinois Uniform Parentage Act
Illinois law has several provisions that address the concerns of those looking into ART. One of the main Illinois laws on the subject is the Illinois Uniform Parentage Act. The parentage act recognizes a parent-child relationship between the child and the woman who gives birth to the child; however, it accepts a parent-child relationship when there is a valid surrogacy agreement in place.
If you are in the process of divorce, or are contemplating divorce, there are important tax considerations that must be taken into account. Specific parts of the tax code speak directly to divorce; thus, divorcing couples must consider the tax consequences with regard to the decisions being made.
Timing for Filing Status
Whether or not you are eligible to file jointly depends on your marital status. The IRS uses your official marital status as of December 31. Therefore, if your divorce is not finalized by the end of the year, you can file jointly. You may want to keep this in mind when you consider the timing of your divorce.
Dependents
If there are children from the marriage, the question of who will claim which child is typically something that is decided during divorce proceedings. To begin, you should first discuss this with your attorney before the issue arises. It may make sense for one person to claim all dependents and give up something else. Or, one parent can claim some of the children and the other parent can claim the rest.
There are several different types of legal cases that involve children, whether as a party to a lawsuit, a defendant, or an interested party. Furthermore, there are certain situations where the court will appoint an attorney to represent a minor (someone under the age of 18). In cases such as this, you may want to contact your own skilled child representation attorney for assistance.
Juvenile Court
Young people who are charged with a crime, are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and/or delinquent may be diverted into juvenile court. Minors involved in juvenile court have many of the same rights that adults have in criminal court. Minors in both juvenile and criminal court have the right to an attorney. Additionally, if a young person or his or her family cannot afford an attorney, the court will appoint one for free if necessary.
Family Court
There are several reasons why an individual may want to move, whether locally or further away—a change in employment, family members who need care-taking, or cheaper costs of living. However, if you live in Illinois and are subject to a parenting plan, meaning that you are separated or divorced from the other parent, there are specific rules regarding when and where you can relocate.
Former Illinois Parental Relocation Law
In the past, the law required parents to obtain court approval to move with their children only if they were moving outside of Illinois. Indeed, parents could move with the child a few miles or across the state without getting the court’s approval. However, if a parent moved across state lines, even if it was just a few miles, they would need to get court approval. Like with most areas of family law, the court used the standard of the “best interests of the child” to decide whether to approve or disapprove the proposed move.
It is almost the holiday season, which can mean fun. However, holidays can also be stressful. Parents that do not live together may have added stress with regard to sharing parenting time and determining who will have the children when. Moreover, it can be frustrating when you plan to have parenting time but the other parent interferes with that time.
If you have a valid parenting plan in place, it should lay out who has parenting time with your children on which holidays. Yet sometimes one parent may refuse to allow the other parent the parenting time to which he or she is entitled. If this happens, you should contact pre and post-judgment court order enforcement attorneys to help you enforce the legal agreement that you made.
Allocation of Parenting Time
If you were married when you had kids and then divorced, in order for the judge to approve the divorce, there should have been an agreed upon parenting plan—though the plan may have been called a custody agreement at the time. The agreement should lay out exactly who has the children on which holidays and for how long.
One of the biggest concerns that couples with children have during a divorce is with whom the children will live. There are many factors that go into decisions about where the children will live. Parents who want the child to live with them will be best served by working with a skilled family law attorney to help make their case in court.
The Best Interest of the Child
The court makes its decisions based on the best interests of the child. The factors that go into best interests of the child are laid out in the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act. A number of factors that the court will examine include (depending on age) the child’s wishes, the needs of the child and parents, how the child will adjust to his or her school or community, whether the parents can get along, and if there has been any abuse in the family.
The court’s main concern is the children’s well-being, and the court will want the children to live with the parent who will not only give the child the best environment, but who will also preserve the child’s relationship with the other parent (barring abuse or other unsafe situations).
While prenuptial agreements are commonly discussed in popular culture, it is less common to hear about postnuptial agreements. Postnuptial agreements cover similar things to prenuptial agreements, but they are entered into after the marriage has already been created. It may seem strange for couples to enter into these (usually) binding agreements after they have already been married for a period of time, but there are many valid reasons why a couple may want to draw up and sign a postnuptial agreement.
If you are thinking about a postnuptial agreement it is crucial that you talk to a knowledgeable prenuptial and postnuptial agreement attorney to make sure that the agreement you devise will be upheld by the court.
Marital Wrongdoing
One common reason for a postnuptial agreement is for one spouse to prove to the other that he or she is committed to working on the marriage. Illinois does not take fault into account when calculating spousal support and maintenance, so forgiving the infidelity will have no effect on the outcome without a postnuptial agreement. However, a spouse who has engaged in wrongdoing, such as adultery, can prove that he or she is committed to the marriage by drawing up a postnuptial agreement with terms favorable to the other spouse.
There are many issues that must be figured out during a divorce, including property division, parenting time, and parental decision making responsibility. Courts prefer situations in which couples are able to work out these issues themselves instead of going through the lengthy and labor intensive litigation process.
In Illinois, if a divorcing couple does not already have an agreement about issues related to parenting when they come to court, in many cases the court will order the couple to attempt to engage in mediation.
To save yourself from the headaches (and costs) of going to court in order to be sent to mediation, you may want to start by talking to a knowledgeable mediation attorney before the court gets involved.
Mediation Basics
Mediation is a process where the couple tries to reach agreements about important issues with a skilled third-party neutral mediator leading the process. In successful mediation, the divorcing couple will be able to find an arrangement that accommodates both parties. Furthermore, with mediation, the couple can come up with creative solutions that work for them collectively.
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