Valentine's Divorce Day (VIDEO, AUDIO)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

DALLAS, TX – A process server brings divorce papers. A florist delivers black roses. A cake with black icing heralds, "Happy Divorce." While Valentine's Day is a time for gifts to a loved one, there are times when certain gifts may not be appreciated. When the parties are undergoing a divorce, February 14 is steeped in irony.

It may sound odd, but the truth is that this time is also hip deep in divorce filings. A service called LegalMatch.com reports that Valentine's Day is the high point in the number of divorces filed for the year. And Divorce Magazine says the day after Valentine’s is the busiest for divorce lawyers.

"Regretfully, those statistics are right," Ike Vanden Eykel, managing partner of Koons, Fuller, Vanden Eykel & Robertson told Scott Braddock, host of the news roundup of KRLD Radio, the CBS radio affiliate and the top talk station in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. "Only your imagination can limit what mean things people can do to each other on Valentine's Day. Each year, we think this is the last we’ll see of all that, but then people find something else to emphasize how happy they are to be shed of their spouse."

Aubrey Connatser, a Koons Fuller Partner, was at a bench/bar conference in Dallas when James Rose of Fox 4 television called to ask about the epidemic of Valentine’s Day divorce pranks.

"Of course," she says, "the worst one is the client intentionally leaving a receipt out in plain sight for a piece of jewelry that did not get to the wife." Aubrey also told about the florist who sent Valentine's Day flowers and mixed up the cards designated for the wife and the mistress. The client didn’t intend for this to happen, but the toxic effect was the same.

All in all, Valentine's Day is a time of extreme highs and difficult lows. In terms of divorce, they call it the Valentine’s Effect.

Kevin Fuller Touts Collaborative Law (AUDIO)

Saturday, February 28, 2009

DALLAS – Want to know something about collaborative law? You’re in the right place, and Kevin Fuller can provide that information. As President of the Collaborative Law Institute of Texas (CLI-Texas), one of Kevin’s biggest tasks is to let the most people know all about the uses of CL in family law.

Click here to listen to Kevin Fuller on the nationwide radio show, America Tonight.

And it seems that people are listening when Kevin talks. He has brought his message to statewide and national radio programs for the past year. Kevin presides over the state’s most influential collaborative law organization through 2009. CLI-Texas is dedicated to increasing the number of divorces settled through the collaborative law process.

The Collaborative Law Institute of Texas seeks to create a culture in which collaborative law is the prevailing process for resolution of family law matters. Several Koons Fuller attorneys are members of this group. To find out more about CLI-TX, go to http://www.collablawtexas.com.