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Tags >> MA Lawyer

The new, Massachusetts alimony law was signed by Governor Patrick on October 4, 2011 after winning approval in both the House and Senate. The changes establish guidelines for alimony payments and include limits on the duration of the payments. The new law essentially will eliminate lifetime alimony in many cases and will in part be determined by the length of the marriage.

The new law is a significant departure from current alimony practice and will have a dramatic impact on both parties to a divorce.
Some highlights of the new law include:

•    Indefinite alimony can still be awarded for long term marriages, defined as lasting twenty years or more.
•    Alimony for long term marriages will end when the payer’s spouse reaches retirement age, as defined by the Social Security Act.
•    For short term marriages lasting less than five years, alimony may not last longer than half of the number of months of the marriage.
•    With short term marriages judges can order “reimbursement alimony” if one party had put the other through school or job training.
•    For intermediate term marriages, defined as lasting longer than five years, but less than ten years, the maximum alimony term is 60% of the months of marriage.
•    For intermediate term marriages of more than ten years, but less than fifteen years, the maximum alimony term is 70% of the number of months of marriage.
•    For intermediate term marriages which are more than fifteen years, but last less than twenty years, the maximum alimony term is 80% of the duration of the marriage.
•    If the payer has remarried, the new spouse’s income and assets will be excluded from alimony determination and modification actions.
•    Cohabitation suspends, reduces, or even terminates alimony when it can be shown that the person who is receiving alimony has maintained a common house or has lived with another person for at least three months.
•    Child support payments will be factored into alimony and ---- (THIS IS CONFUSING!)
•    Alimony will be limited and should generally not exceed the needs of  the person receiving it, or 30% - 35% of the recipient’s (?) gross income, established at the time of the order.
•    A second income or income from overtime work will not be included when considering alimony modification and would be presumed to be immaterial to the alimony if the part worked more than a single full time equivalent and the second job or overtime commenced after the entry of the initial order.
•    Health and/or life insurance premium payments reduce alimony.
•    Alimony extensions will be limited.
•    Alimony will end at the remarriage of the recipient.

As a pet lover with two cats and two dogs, I understand how pets become part of the family.  The law allowing pet trusts makes it easy to plan for the care of your pets if you become disabled or die.  The pet trust became a law in Massachusetts on April 7, 2011.  It allows the pet owner to legally make enforceable trusts which provide for the care of your pets.  

The reasons to consider a pet trust are:

 

 •     If you have identified a caretaker for your pet and that person needs access to  funds to care for the pet, but you do not want that person receiving all the remaining funds after the pets dies;

•     If your life expectancy is shorter than your pet’s;

•     If there is a concern about who would care for your pet if something were to happen to you;






As most people are aware there are a lot of concerns about social media with issues of privacy and concerns about who you and your children might be “friending”.   In today’s legal climate there are a lot of legal risks associated with the internet that people are not aware of.  It is a fairly common practice for school resource police officers to troll social media for students who might be on YouTube, Facebook, My Space and other social media tools, to monitor their activities.  In some cases they have taken out criminal complaints if what they found on the social media appears to be a crime.

I just recently had one case in which the school resource officer went as far as charging my client along with a friend of his with the eavesdropping statute for essentially taking a video of another party, supposedly without that other party’s permission.  You do see charges whether it is an assault or minor in possession or other crimes that can be viewed. 

In addition, it is a common practice among probation officers to look for the probationers and their friends on social media networks to see if there are any posting or pictures showing in violations of their probation.  This might include minor in possession of alcohol or talking about it or marijuana or other questioning activities.  I have been in court where I have seen children who have ended up being committed to DYS or the house of corrections based on what was posted on the social media networks.


There are several areas that you should look for when hiring an attorney.  Here are 4 areas to focus on.

 1. Control-make sure you know who is calling the shots.  The attorney should make sure to discuss your role as the client versus the lawyers and that you are the one ultimately in control.

2.  Cost-  You should discuss the cost up front and make sure to have a fee agreement in writing.  This includes checking to see if the initial meeting is free or not.