ATLAS/BRIEFINGLaw, organized for consequential decisions.

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Marital finances

Support, asset discovery, and interim financial orders.

FAM-01 · 01

Temporary Orders During Divorce: Housing, Finances, Support, and Parenting

8 MIN · FAM

Interim orders decide who lives where, who pays what, and when each parent sees the children while the case is pending. They are decided fast, on paper, and they tend to stick.

  • Divorce is state law. What a court can order on an interim basis, and how fast, differs materially from one state to the next.
  • Temporary orders are usually decided on affidavits and documents rather than live testimony, which makes exhibit quality the deciding factor.
  • Several states attach automatic restraining provisions to the divorce summons, freezing asset transfers and insurance changes without any hearing.
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FAM-02 · 02

Finding and Valuing Assets in Divorce Discovery

8 MIN · FAM

Assets are usually found on paper before they are found by subpoena. This brief works the tax-return trail first, then the formal discovery tools, then the valuation fights that follow.

  • Start with tax returns and their schedules. Interest, dividends, capital gains, and K-1 entries name accounts and entities nobody disclosed.
  • Most states require sworn financial disclosure before any formal discovery is served, and a false disclosure carries consequences beyond the asset itself.
  • Business valuation turns on the standard of value the state applies and on whether goodwill is treated as personal or enterprise property.
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FAM-05 · 03

Finding Digital and Crypto Assets in a Family Case

8 MIN · FAM

Digital holdings are traceable more often than people assume, but the trail runs through tax filings, bank records, and party production rather than through the blockchain alone.

  • Property division is state law. No federal statute tells a divorce court how to classify or divide a crypto holding or a monetized account.
  • Federal tax filings are the cheapest starting point: the digital asset question and reported dispositions both create documented, sworn admissions.
  • The Stored Communications Act generally stops a civil subpoena from reaching message or email content held by a provider; production comes from the party.
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FAM-06 · 04

Valuing a Closely Held Business in Divorce

8 MIN · FAM

Two competent appraisers can value the same company months apart and land a third of the way from each other. The gap is almost never arithmetic; it is the legal assumptions the appraiser was told to use.

  • The standard of value — fair market value or fair value — is a legal question decided by state law, not a choice the appraiser makes.
  • Whether personal goodwill is marital property varies by state and often decides most of the value in a professional practice.
  • Marketability and minority discounts can move a number by a third; several states restrict or bar them in the divorce context.
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FAM-08 · 05

Interstate Support Enforcement Under UIFSA

8 MIN · FAM

A move across a state line does not create a second support order or a second chance to relitigate. UIFSA keeps one order controlling and gives it a route into the new state.

  • UIFSA has been adopted in every state as a condition of federal funding, producing one controlling order rather than competing orders in each state.
  • The issuing state keeps continuing exclusive jurisdiction while a party or the child still lives there, so another state may enforce but not modify.
  • An income-withholding order can be sent directly to an out-of-state employer without any filing in the employer's state.
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FAM-09 · 06

Fee Awards in Family Cases: Need, Conduct, and Sanctions

8 MIN · FAM

Family law is one of the few areas where a court routinely orders one private party to fund the other's lawyer. Three different theories support that, and they need different proof.

  • The default rule is that each side pays its own lawyer; family fee awards exist only because state statutes create exceptions to it.
  • Some states award fees on need and ability to pay, others on litigation conduct, and many statutes allow both on different showings.
  • Interim awards exist so that access to counsel does not track the income split, and they are usually a contribution rather than full coverage.
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FAM-10 · 07

Modifying or Terminating Spousal Support After Judgment

8 MIN · FAM

Before arguing that circumstances changed, answer a prior question: is this award modifiable at all? Many are not, and the answer usually sits in the agreement rather than the statute.

  • Spousal support is state law. Grounds, standards, durational rules, and termination events differ substantially from one state to the next.
  • Many settlement agreements make support non-modifiable in amount, duration, or both, and courts in most states enforce that choice.
  • Where modification is available, the usual threshold is a substantial change in circumstances not anticipated when the order was made.
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