What is Forum Shopping and High-End Divorce?
Forum shopping has continued to grow in popularity over the past 20 years. Forum shopping is the practice of filing a lawsuit in a state or country where the laws are favorable to your case. Because a legal claim might be brought in more than one state (or country), the person filing gets to choose where they sue. And that means they get to choose the law that applies to their case.
Contact Hamilton O’Neill if you are considering divorce. Your spouse might have filed in a foreign country or a different state, and there is probably a reason for that. We can analyze if the laws in the selected forum work to your disadvantage. We can also review whether we can ask the court to transfer the case to Miami for convenience.
Why Shop for a Forum When It Comes to Divorce?
Many states and countries will dissolve a marriage, even if you did not get married there. Instead, the forum will exercise what is called “jurisdiction” and issue a divorce decree. Each state or country has its own laws for when you can file in the forum. For example, many states only require that one spouse have lived in the state for six months, otherwise the state will not have jurisdiction to issue a divorce.
People forum shop because a court will usually apply its state law to the dispute. Because each state and country has different laws, some people search for a favorable forum.
This might all sound technical, and it is. But which court hears your divorce or child custody case matters enormously. Some states have laws that might help your spouse and result in less favorable outcomes for you regarding child custody, alimony, or property division.
What Can You Do?
If you live in Florida but your spouse filed in a different state (or country), then call us. We can review whether they chose the forum because its laws are beneficial to them.
Sometimes we can ask the court to transfer a case back to Florida or Miami specifically. We can argue that Florida is the more convenient location because most of the evidence for your divorce is here. A court in a different state might agree, especially if you and your spouse live in Florida for most of the year or most of your assets are located here.
When it comes to child custody, different laws come into play. One federal law requires that child custody cases be heard in the state where the child has been living for six months with a parent. That is the child’s “home state.” A court must transfer a child custody case to the child’s home state.
Many of our clients have homes in multiple states or countries. Your spouse might file there instead of in Florida, if favorable to them. Foreign courts, in particular, are not always eager to send cases back to the United States, so work with a law firm that understands this area of law.
Schedule a Consultation Today
Hamilton O’Neill is the firm to call if you are involved in a high-asset divorce, especially one which has been filed in a different country or state. We leverage decades of combined experience in family law to our clients’ benefit. Contact us to speak with a Miami divorce lawyer.