The VLW Blog

A bill to restrict circuit court judges’ right to fill a seat on the district court bench has been tabled by a House Courts of Justice subcommittee. House Bill 1338 would change Va. Code § 16.1-69.9:2 to add that no person could be appointed on an interim basis to fill a vacant district court seat, [...]

[Read more →]

The Miller-Jenkins same-sex custody case has spawned a federal racketeering lawsuit accusing various persons, including alleged agents of Liberty University’s law school, of conspiring in the kidnapping of 10-year-old Isabella Miller. The girl disappeared with her birth mother, Lisa Miller, in 2009, in the midst of a custody battle with former partner Janet Jenkins. Jenkins [...]

[Read more →]

A wife wins her appeal and attorney’s fees after her husband violated their PSA by failing to name her as a beneficiary of his military survivor benefit plan, the Virginia Court of Appeals said today. Its decision in Nelson v. Nelson was one of three divorce cases decided today by unpublished opinion. A Fairfax Circuit [...]

[Read more →]

A permanent spousal support award cannot be explicitly pegged to the local formula used for temporary support, the Virginia Court of Appeals said today. An appeals court panel reversed a wife’s monthly support award of $4,159 because the record did not show the Henrico County Circuit Court actually fixed the amount of support after weighing [...]

[Read more →]

Engagement and wedding rings symbolize eternal love, say the diamond ads in bridal magazines. A couple that breaks up can sometimes find creative and liberating ways to deal with those tangible symbols of a love gone wrong. Or maybe they just try to pay the bills. Trecia A. Chavez said her husband Sean Chavez sold [...]

[Read more →]

A husband with $3.5 million in assets still could afford the $2,100 in monthly spousal support he agreed to pay his former wife in their 2000 property settlement agreement, according to a Court of Appeals decision released today. It did not matter that the wife had left a law firm job after only a few [...]

[Read more →]

In yet another sign of the post-paper era, a judge has digitally delivered not a “letter opinion,” but an “email opinion” to communicate a ruling to the parties. Judges often send their letter opinions as email attachments, and many arrive at Virginia Lawyers Weekly in that form. But this new message is a fully developed [...]

[Read more →]

Maybe she came to him with open arms. Maybe there was lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’. Maybe it was time for her and husband to go their separate ways. Faithfully? Maybe not. In any event, reports that White House party-crasher Michaele Salahi had been abducted turned out to be false. Politico reports she ran off with the [...]

[Read more →]

Come listen to the tale of Tammy Taylor and Curtis Cole. Cole married Taylor in 1995. Somewhere along the way, the romance must have faded. In 2005, Cole went through a marriage ceremony with Donna Vincent without first divorcing Taylor. Cole claimed on his marriage license application that he had never been married. Cole claimed [...]

[Read more →]

Some women who marry men may prefer not to use a husband’s name. But adopting the same name can be an important badge of unity for gay and lesbian couples. A Washington County Circuit Court has granted a name change petition for a woman who wants to adopt her female partner’s last name. ACLU of [...]

[Read more →]