I have a lot of advice on my blog about the law and procedure of family law, but very little about how to get through a divorce in one piece, or at least without hitting the self destruct button on your personal life.  Here are six rules for people going through a divorce that I have developed over my years as a divorce lawyer.  More rules undoubtedly exist, and perhaps some of these rules can be combined into one rule, but these are the specific things that I see people do to themselves.  Finally, as with all rules, they may be a bit like the Pirate Code, according to Captain Barbossa of the Pirates of the Carribean movies: "...more like…

One issue with which parents often struggle is how to give notice to the other parent of unreimbursed medical expenses for the parties’ children.  The Arizona Court of Appeals recently addressed this issue in an unpublished decision. The Arizona Child Support Guidelines require the parent seeking reimbursement from the other parent to give notice to the other parent within 180 days of incurring the expense.  The notice need not be in writing and need not include a receipt, unless the other parent asks for it. The parties in the appellate case operated under these rules until the court entered a modification order requiring the parent seeking reimbursement from the other parent to give notice in writing within 30 days of…