I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The rough Michigan economy is thought to have driven down the divorce rate in recent years, but those who are divorcing are trying to hold down costs by representing themselves. Increasingly these couples are splitting up debt rather than assets.
The Detroit News reports that Southeast Michigan legal aid clinics and court rooms are clogged with couples who are struggling to complete the necessary legal paperwork without assistance, and that without lawyers many are losing out on property and custody claims that are legally theirs.
In Macomb County, 1,368 husbands and wives began divorce proceedings in 2009 without attorneys, a 16 percent increase from two years prior. Though other Metro Detroit counties could not provide similar records, attorneys and judges in Oakland and Wayne reported encountering more divorce defendants in court representing themselves.
There are some resources available to those who want to avoid attorney fees during divorce. The law libraries in county courthouses have divorce manuals available, some state specific advice is available online, and legal aid clinics can offer advice on how to fill out forms and prepare for divorce proceedings.
Some warn that navigating divorce without a lawyer is risky.
“They wind up irrevocably turning down things that they can’t get back,” said Kent Weichman of the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan.
Spouses have waived their rights to the other’s pension, foregone assets or ended up stuck with debts they didn’t need to shoulder alone, he said. And judges, who are neutral officers of the court, can offer no advice and grant divorces based only on the couple’s
agreed-upon terms.
A law proposed last month by State Senator and Secretary of State candidate, Michelle McManus (R-Lake Leelanau), could make divorce even harder for those who try to navigate the system without an attorney.
McManus is the sole sponsor of SB 1127 which would eliminate ‘no fault divorce’ for couples with children or where one member does not consent to the divorce.
Under this law couples seeking divorce would have to allege specific problems such as adultery, physical abuse, imprisonment, physical incompetence at time of marriage, or that a spouse had sex with an animal or dead human body.
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