The VLW Blog

A Newport News jury has awarded $420,000 to a woman who contended that an attorney mishandled her divorce case. The attorney, Amy M.P. VanFossen, who was practicing with Jones, Blechman, Woltz & Kelly PC at the time, failed to preserve her client’s right to spousal support. VanFossen testified that she made a mistake in thinking [...]

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The Virginia Court of Appeals issued two published domestic relations opinions Tuesday, one involving attorneys’ fees and the other analyzing the classification of a personal injury recovery as separate or marital property. The trial judge awarded attorneys’ fees to the mother for prevailing in her effort to have jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction [...]

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That’s what the Virginia Court of Appeals said this week to a Fairfax couple who divorced in 2006 but still managed to accumulate a 6,000-page, 19-volume joint appendix in their 2008 appeal. Jeffrey and Lynette Fadness married in 1980 and reared three children to adulthood. Jeffrey appealed last year, then appealed again, complaining that the [...]

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Bummer if you were looking for the Supreme Court of Virginia to really decide three closely watched cases: Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins, which appeared to raise the issue of whether Virginia courts will defer to courts of another state on issues involving same sex couples, and Moreau v. Fuller and Gibson v. Commonwealth, which presented the [...]

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The much-litigated custody of 6-year-old Isabella Miller-Jenkins was in court again today, this time before the Supreme Court of Virginia Mathew Staver, the head of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University law school, told the court that the Virginia Constitution and the federal Defense of Marriage Act prevent the court from considering anything [...]

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From the Love Stinks Department: It’s not quite as provocative as the Chicago billboard last year featuring a buff dude and a scantily clad babe and proclaiming, “Life’s short. Get a divorce.” But the message is pretty much the same. The Associated Press reports that a radio station in Charleston, W.Va., is auctioning off a [...]

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One of last year’s fiercest lobbying battles in the General Assembly has been one-sided so far this time around. Domestic relations attorneys, with the support of the Virginia Bar Association and the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association, are determined to get Virginia Code § 20-124.3:1 repealed. The provision bars use of the records or testimony of [...]

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Glenn Lewis, president of the Virginia Bar Association and divorce law expert, is no stranger to television. Lewis (pictured at right) had his own cable TV gig in Fairfax for years. During the Bush-Gore ballot count in 2000, he was a stateside commentator for the BBC. Lewis has taken his game to a new level. [...]

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It hasn’t been a good month so far for the image of lawyers. First there was the judge in DC who filed the $67 million lawsuit over a lost pair of pants. Amazingly, his claim is going forward, with a June trial date. The latest on that story: Supporters have rallied around the Korean couple [...]

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Whether therapist testimony can come into a domestic relations court case – an issue that has pitted lawyers against therapists – appears to be settled enough to allow the Virginia Court of Appeals to shuttle decisions on the subject into its “Unpublished Opinion” file. Just last December, the appellate court said in a 2-1 decision [...]

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