Family Law

Redwood City Divorce Attorney Discusses Social Networking and Divorce: Yays and Nays

By Scott Sagaria

Redwood City Divorce Attorney Discusses Social Networking and Divorce: Yays and Nays

Now that everyone and their dog (or their spouse) is on Facebook, MySpace and the various other social networking sites, individuals can easily keep track of friends, family and even ex-spouses. Its either the best thing to happen for divorcing families or the worst.

Couple of things to watch for on these sites if you are getting divorced:
1. Don?t brag about fancy new purchases, extravagant vacations or other indulgent luxuries. You don?t want your ex-spouse to find out about it and use it to claim you have more money than you say you do when it comes to child support or spousal support. Courts can and do use expenses as a guide in support calculations.
2. Delete all your crazy party girl or boy photos. This is especially true for people with children. First of all, your kids don?t need to know how much partying you are doing. Second, you don?t want that one fun time used to portray you as an alcoholic partier who cannot be trusted with the kids.
3. Don?t let your friends through you under the bus. Your ex may troll your friends pages for similarly disparaging photos.
4. Keep it calm: it?s ok to be stressed during a divorce, but keep the sh** talk to your self. Especially about the judge and your ex. You don?t want to show up in Family Law Court one day and have the opposing side hand the judge a copy of your Facebook wall wherein you describe the judge in negative terms. And if you have kids, definitely avoid the negative talk about the ex. Family courts are serious about the no disparagement clauses in custody agreements. That includes no disparagement on Facebook.

Everyone understands the value these sites provide. But as always, it?s a good idea to mind your ps and qs while using them, especially when you are under a microscope, which you frequently are in divorce or other family law action.

Here at Sagaria Law, we offer a full range of family law and legal services including divorce, paternity, adoption, child custody and visitation matters, child support, spousal support, alimony, juvenile dependency, domestic violence, division of property, grandparent visitation and custody, etc. We have seven Northern California locations including San Jose, San Francisco, Redwood City, Fremont, Salinas, Roseville and Sacramento. We offer a free thirty minute consultation, either in person at any of our offices, or over the phone. Call our offices today and we can connect you with an attorney immediately or we can schedule your free consultation with one of our family law attorneys: (408) 279-2288 or (800) 941-6730 or visit www.sagarialaw.com

Full post as published by California Family Law Blog on July 28, 2009 (boomark / email).