Author name: Charlotte Christian

In contested Alabama custody cases, two court-connected figures can shape the outcome more than any witness: the guardian ad litem and the custody evaluator. Parents meet both at the most stressful point of their lives, usually without understanding what each one does, who they answer to, or how to engage with them. That misunderstanding costs

When parents live in different states (or one parent is about to), the first custody question is not who should have the children. It is which state’s courts get to decide. That question is governed by the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA), which Alabama has adopted, and getting it wrong wastes months

“It was mine before we married, so it stays mine” is one of the most repeated (and most dangerous), assumptions in Alabama divorce. It starts true: premarital property, gifts, and inheritances are presumptively separate. But separate property does not always stay separate. Through commingling and use, it can become part of the marital estate, and

Equitable distribution only works on assets the court knows about, and in some divorces, one spouse works hard to make sure the court does not know about all of them. Hidden assets are more common in divorces involving businesses, cash-heavy income, or one spouse who controlled the finances. Here is how assets get hidden, how

Alabama regulates custodial moves more tightly than most parents realize. If you share custody (or have any custody or visitation order), and you want to change your child’s principal residence, the Alabama Parent-Child Relocation Act sets out a formal process of notice, objection, and court review. Skipping it is not a paperwork problem; it can

In many Lauderdale County divorces, the largest asset in the marriage is not the house. It is a retirement account. The Shoals workforce is built on employers whose benefits include real pensions and long-vested retirement plans: the utilities, the hospitals, the university, the school systems, city and county government, and the manufacturers. When a marriage

“How much will this cost?” deserves a straight answer, and the straight answer is that divorce cost is not one number. It is a set of drivers, most of them at least partially within your control. Here is what a divorce actually costs in Florence and Lauderdale County: the court costs everyone pays, how attorney

Every divorce timeline in Florence runs on two clocks: the legal floor (Alabama’s mandatory 30-day waiting period that no case can beat), and the practical range, which is what actually happens between filing at the Lauderdale County Courthouse and holding a final decree. Where your case lands in that range depends mostly on variables you

Shelby County is Alabama’s wealthiest county, and its divorces reflect it. The estates we see from Greystone, Highland Lakes, Mt Laurel, and the 280 corridor’s professional class are built on executive compensation, physician and dental practice interests, closely-held businesses, real estate that has appreciated relentlessly, and retirement portfolios decades in the making. Dividing that kind

“How long will this take?” has a different answer in Shelby County than anywhere else we practice, because Shelby County’s docket has a math problem. The county has grown faster than almost any in Alabama, its family caseload has grown with it, and court resources have not kept pace. Contested cases wait longer here than

Alabama’s Best Interest of the Child Protection Act (HB 229), took effect January 1, 2026, and reset the starting point of every custody case heard in Columbiana. The law presumes joint physical and legal custody serves the child’s best interest, and a parent seeking anything else carries the burden of rebutting that presumption with specific

Filing for divorce in Shelby County means filing at the Shelby County Courthouse in Columbiana, and it means entering a court system that runs differently than its neighbors. Shelby County has no automatic standing order freezing finances at filing, generally does not force cases into mediation, and carries one of the heavier caseloads in the

For many families, the hardest property question in a divorce is not the house or the retirement account: it is the dog. And Alabama law answers it in a way that surprises almost everyone: pets are personal property. There is no pet custody statute, no visitation schedule, no best-interest-of-the-animal standard. Legally, the family dog is

Supervised visitation is one of the least understood orders in Alabama family law. Parents on both sides tend to hear it as a verdict, either “the court thinks I’m dangerous” or “the court finally sees the other parent for what they are.” In practice it is usually neither. Supervised visitation is a calibrated protection: a

Domestic violence changes everything in an Alabama custody case. It is the clearest ground for rebutting the state’s joint custody presumption, it triggers its own statutory presumption against the perpetrator, and it forces protective decisions and custody strategy to work together from day one. This guide covers how Alabama law treats domestic violence in custody,

“At what age can my child choose which parent to live with?” may be the single most-asked question in Alabama custody law, and the honest answer surprises most parents: there is no such age. Alabama has no statute that lets a child pick a household at 12, or 14, or any age short of adulthood.

Every Lauderdale County divorce takes one of two paths. In an uncontested divorce, both spouses agree on every term before filing, and the court reviews and approves. In a contested divorce, at least one issue is disputed, and the case runs through discovery, negotiation, mediation, and possibly trial. The difference is months of time and

Filing for divorce in Lauderdale County starts at the Lauderdale County Courthouse in downtown Florence, and what happens in the weeks after filing shapes everything that follows. The Shoals has its own rhythm: a family court docket serving Florence, the surrounding Lauderdale County communities, and families whose working lives run through the hospitals, the university,

Alabama’s Best Interest of the Child Protection Act (House Bill 229), took effect January 1, 2026, and reset the starting point of every custody case in Lauderdale County. The law creates a rebuttable presumption that joint physical and legal custody is in a child’s best interest. For Florence parents heading into a divorce, a modification,