Practice Blawg » Family Law

Adjustments Made to Monster Judgment and Decree

Gregory Luce — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:17:40 +0000

We periodically review the “Monster” Stipulated Judgment and Decree on practicelaw. And while we initially set out to review it quarterly, that is now turning into periodic reviews that roughly approximate three times each year. We just completed our last review and made only minor changes, mostly related to updating statutory citations throughout the document. The most recent version is now available on practicelaw here (it’s form number FAM-680).(...)
Read the rest of Adjustments Made to Monster Judgment and Decree (165 words)

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Post tags: Forms, Judgment and Decree

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Monster Judgment and Decree, Now Updated

Gregory Luce — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:33:05 +0000

If you are a Minnesota family law attorney, you’ve probably seen the “monster” stipulated judgment and decree that more than thirty family law attorneys created two years ago. Since that time, practicelaw has taken on the task of reviewing it and revising it when necessary, with a goal of reviewing it four times a year.

We recently completed our latest review and the revised judgment and decree is now published here on practicelaw (look for form FAM-680). What did we do this time around? Mainly cleaned up some outdated legalese, added some income provisions, and made changes that we did not consider substantive. You can review the changes on a PDF here, but the general changes include the following:

We removed, wherever possible, references to outdated legalese, such as “said” or “therein” or “hereto.” We were careful to make sure those removals did not affect the overall meaning of any clause or paragraph.
Consistent with Minn. Gen. R. Prac. 308.04, we added the following specific language just above the signature lines: “The parties agree that the foregoing Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law incorporate the complete and full Marital Termination Agreement.”
We added provisions for various other employment of the parties, including self-employment, social security income, unemployment insurance, irregular income, spousal maintenance, and investment income. These provisions are already in our mndocs system but do not currently appear in the Microsoft Word version of the Monster J&D.
We made minor language changes to be more concise, such as changing “Minor Tax Exemption” simply to “Dependency Exemption.”
We modified language that relates to an OFP. Previously, by default, both parties would be “subject to” the OFP. That remains an option, but we also added optional language for the more common case where only one party is subject to the OFP.

As we told our group of reviewers, we are considering other more substantive requests for changes but are not now ready to include or add those changes. Rather, we’ll seek more input in the next few months to determine if more substantive changes are required.

To see other proposed changes or to add your own suggestions or ideas, check out an Ideascale application that tracks and processes the suggestions. That is available here.

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Post tags: Judgment and Decree, Monster

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Updated Monster Judgment and Decree

Andrea Hable — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:28:08 +0000

In September 2008, our inaugural post highlighted the complexity of drafting a form version of a Stipulated Judgment and Decree for a family law matter. practicelaw posted a Microsoft Word version a month later and released an automated version in mndocs shortly after that. But it was not our work. It was the result at that time of a phenomenal collaboration of more than 20 family law attorneys who first gathered around a conference table at Gray Plant Mooty, comparing their own versions of judgments and decrees, contributing clauses, discussing issues, and ultimately putting together what Dana McKenzie, who spearheaded the effort, appropriately labeled the Monster Judgment and Decree.

More than 100 posts later, we’ve had at least two new looks for the blog, launched a new practicelaw, and now—drum roll please—have significantly updated the Monster Judgment and Decree, which we posted to practicelaw today (check out four sample pages of the form below).

After nearly two years, we decided the initial Monster J&D needed a facelift. I call it a facelift because the vast majority of the changes are cosmetic, not substantive. The big changes involve new formatting and making the document more uniform, which means a new typeface, spacing changes, consistent practice notes and form variables, and a host of other small changes that in the end make up a pretty sharp-looking document.

Hopefully all changes that make it easier to use and read, and save you time editing so you can focus on the substance of the J&D.

While there are some substantive changes, I suspect they are the most important changes for most of you. To save you from comparing all 77 pages, here’s a list of the updates:

Optional signature line for counties with referees.
New provisions for:
- parties who are members of the armed services;
- adult children with special needs;
- property interests in a cabin or bare land;
- responsibility for cost of storing embryos or other genetic material;
- responsibility for obligors to notify the public authority about termination of employment when there is income withholding.
Corrections to language in the life insurance property award to Respondent.
Clarified:
- how long child support is owed;
- how long parties must carry health insurance for children;
- the court’s jurisdiction over maintenance in the event of bankruptcy;
- the order of priority of expenses paid from the sale of real estate.
Removed paragraphs about non-paternity of a non-joint child. In our next revision we may add back a paragraph reserving this issue.

And of course many little changes, like minor corrections to numbering, grammar, and capitalization. You know, the fun stuff.

We plan to revisit the J&D quarterly. If you have any suggestions for the next update, let us know.

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Resurrecting the Schmitz Calculator

Gregory Luce — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:21:01 +0000

In creating a new design for practicelaw last fall, we undertook a full-out review of all the materials available on the old site. In the process, we left behind old materials and put others aside for later review for potential resurrection. One of those that we shunted aside for the time being was the so-called “Schmitz Calculator,” which family law attorneys use to determine the relative marital and non-marital interests in real property. Over the last few months we’ve had a number of users ask us about the old practicelaw Schmitz Calculator, particularly where we were hiding it.

Well, it’s back and available as one of our family law forms (look for form FAM-021). It has the same capabilities as our old calculator, which originated with family law attorney Bruce Kennedy, and is based on the Schmitz formula the Minnesota Supreme Court developed in Schmitz v. Schmitz. This time, however, we’ve turned the calculator into a PDF form that you can download and keep on your desktop, opening it up when you need to calculate, say, how much non-marital interest your client has coming in that cabin “up north.”

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Post tags: Divorce, Marital Property

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New Divorce Petitions

Andrea Hable — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:24:38 +0000

To round out practicelaw’s collection of new family law forms, we’ve added new sample petitions for dissolution of marriage. Six sample petitions and a new clause library are now available on practicelaw as Microsoft Word documents.

We created the new sample petitions to fit common fact patterns, ranging from a divorce without kids and no spousal maintenance to a divorce involving minor children, child support, and a request for spousal maintenance. (...)
Read the rest of New Divorce Petitions (121 words)

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Post tags: Dissolution of Marriage, Petitions

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