Don’s Family Law Blog

The divorce rate is falling.

This report from CNN.com explains the new concept of “cluster divorces”.  Beware, it seems divorce can be catchy.

It suggests that the (Al) Gore family is such a cluster with 2 separations in a month and 1 preceding this.  Then, maybe Al’s reported wrestling with a masseuse had something to do with it.  Or maybe it’s ‘global warming’ at work … I suspect that would be Al’s theory.

David (and Libby) Koch advise the readers of the Herald-Sun (17th May 2010) to “Act quickly after divorce“.  They advise immediately upon separation to take money out of the bank, change locks and collect documents.

As a breakfast television star he’s clearly qualified to advise separating spouses.  As a practising family lawyer (for 28 years) I would advise somewhat differently.

Don’t take unilateral steps that will lead to a breach of trust.  Try to maintain the financial relationship you had before separating (grabbing money from the bank account generally leads to a breakdown of this).  Don’t do or say anything that will further inflame emotions.

The ability to sue the mistress for damages would really liven up the Australian family law scene.  Just reported is this case from North Carolina.

The Courier Mail reported on the weekend that Brisbane is the divorce capital of Australia, based on the Federal Magistrates Court 2008-2009 Annual Report.

`Celebrity’ demographer, Bernard Salt, was trotted out to attempt to explain the anomaly.  Alas, it’s not a particularly interesting story.

 The number of divorce applications filed in each city as stated in the article did not take into account that the greater Melbourne and Sydney areas are serviced by 2 registries each (Melbourne and Dandenong and Sydney and Parramatta) while Brisbane has only 1 registry.

If the figures for each of the 2 supporting registries in the southern states are combined: Melbourne/Dandenong (12,373), Sydney/Parramatta (12,251) then it seems Brisbane (9,894) has been crowned unfairly.