Our team handles military divorces. Divorce cases that involve military families need even more intense and sophisticated lawyers because military divorces involve specialized knowledge of each military branch and what benefits each branch, servicemember rank, and level hold. We are familiar with the rules and navigation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). We stay current on the cases across the country that interpret and make divorce decisions that involve the SCRA. We have a network of former military personnel that we use as consultants on our complex cases to ensure that our clients, whether servicemember or spouse, get a fair result in retirement divisions and on-going support awards. This is an area that requires specificity and attention to detail in the precise wording of divorce judgments and even modifications of such. Our team can successfully negotiate these cases with you and achieve enforceable judgments.
Child Custody and Visitation
Our attorneys are parents. We provide a compassionate approach to our clients in contested child custody matters. We know the most important thing in your life is your child. We know that you choose your jobs, where you live, who you live with, and your activities based on how it affects your child. We know this because we do the same every day in our own lives.
Adoption
Paternity
We handle establishment of custody and paternity cases, establishment of parenting time, administrative paternity actions, and administrative support actions. We are trial lawyers. We have litigated hundreds of cases over almost 20 years where the focus has been on the legal standard of what is in the best interests of the child. There is no Oregon statutory preference between father or mother. Facts are what matter. Investigations govern facts. Trial advocacy proves facts that often tip the balance in custody determinations.
Spousal Support
We also handle modification of child and spousal support actions. The legal standard is whether there has been a substantial change in the economic circumstances of a party that justifies a re-evaluation of the terms of the support award by way of a reduction or termination of the support (and often of the life insurance policy securing the support obligation). These cases require a detailed look at both parties’ finances, spending habits, existing assets (or use of prior awarded marital assets), and often times, a party’s medical records if the modification reasoning is premised on a medical condition that affects that party’s ability to continue employment. We have seen many cases where retirement is used as a basis for a modification as well. In addition to the review of areas already set out in this paragraph, it also requires a careful review of the original divorce judgment, basis and type of support award, and specific facts of the retirement in order to advise on whether a termination or reduction is most appropriate. If one party has been laid off from employment and that is used as a basis for modification, this poses additional discovery considerations on current and future earning capacity, skills and qualifications, and proving that the party can obtain gainful employment. We work closely with vocational experts to assist our clients in preparing the case and ascertaining the facts necessary to prove the case in court. Handling these matters on your own without an experienced attorney is risking your immediate and future economic security whether you are the party seeking relief or the party defending against the action.
Jacy grew up on a farm outside of the town of Trenton in northcentral Missouri. She grew up surrounded by cattle, hogs, crops, and gardens. Her favorite childhood memories involved playing with farm kittens, catching crawdads and catfish from the farm ponds, nighttime raccoon hunting with her Dad and Grandpa, white-tail deer hunting since she was old enough to hold a rifle safely (Jacy held a record for the second largest buck taken from the State of Missouri when she was 12 years old and was a member of the MO Show-Me Big Bucks Club and Boone & Crockett Club), and the smell of the family’s seasonal horse-powered sorghum mill as the juice was cooked down for hours to black molasses. She knew in high school that she wanted to be a lawyer. She shadowed a local lawyer during career days and Jacy even convinced her mother to let her miss school and take her to watch several days of a murder trial of Ray Copeland, being held in Chillicothe, Missouri in 1991. Although she didn’t need any other convincing that the courtroom is where she wanted to spend her life after watching that trial, she embarked on an extra-curricular path that included high school speech, oratory and debate classes and tournaments that landed her scholarships for college. She left her hometown to attend Truman State University, a small state college, about an hour away from her home. She graduated college early with honors, magna cum laude, with a B.A. in political science and a minor in international studies in December 1997. She then worked as a substitute teacher in rural schools in the surrounding counties in Missouri to save money to move to Oregon to start Fall classes at the University of Oregon School of Law in 1998. She graduated from Oregon in 2001.
Restraining Order
The terms of a restraining order (RO) were designed with a plain intent to avert abuse and protect individuals who perceive a certain kind of threat to their safety from someone. In Oregon, a restraining order may be obtained by a person who has been subject to abuse within the last 180 days. A restraining order attorney and his or her client should be aware that “abuse” includes physical injury, threatened physical injury or an attempted physical injury.
Our team has developed a network of highly skilled third-party experts and trusted investigators over the last 20 years. Due to the breadth of our practice areas (complex divorce, major felony criminal defense, business litigation, and personal injury work), we have relationships with experts in many fields. For example, we have used bio-mechanical accident reconstruction experts we know from our personal injury litigation cases to assist in felony criminal defense matters resulting in dismissal of all criminal charges. We also use business valuators and forensic CPAs from our complex divorce cases in personal injury cases to testify to loss of earning capacity and damage to business goodwill due to inability to work from injuries. We also have used forensic psychologists as experts to testify to issues of confirmation bias in investigations. We have utilized former Department of Human Services caseworkers to assist in strategic long-term custody and parenting time planning for disabled parents and children. The cross-collateral resources we have developed and utilize are important because they maximize favorable settlement results, steer the case towards beneficial outcomes, and win trials.