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Lump Sum Alimony | Atlanta Divorce Laws

Scott Shaw | 784 Views | 11/06/2015

Lump Sum Alimony

Hello. My name is Scott Shaw, founder and principal of Shaw Law Firm, LLC. A law firm I founded in 1995. Child custody along with divorce and other areas of family law are our only area of legal practice. We don’t accept any other types of cases. In this video I will be discussing the topic of Lump Sum Alimony. When most people think of alimony, they think of a monthly payment to the other spouse.

Lump Sum Alimony is different though. It is different because it is a one time award of assets to the other spouse, and it’s a very dangerous thing to play around with. Lump Sum Alimony is so dangerous, because it is a way for a court or a jury to punish the other party, or to otherwise do equity. Because in a divorce, what usually happens is that each party is awarded their non-marital or premarital assets, and then the parties divide up the marital assets.

Non-Marital Assets

But what happens when most of the assets are one party’s non-marital assets, leaving very little to divide to the other party? In such a case, the court has the power to invade your non-marital estate even if you inherited it, owned it before marriage or whatever, and award some or all of it to your spouse. And a court can do so just because, in the right case it is a huge weapon and it should be scary to you.

Alimony Litigation Example

One case where this came into great effect for me involved a jury trial in which the opposing party, which is the husband in that case, brought a few million dollars into marriage. And he married my client, where the time of marriage was a six figure per year consultant, while he is having an affair with another woman. A few years into the marriage, my client gave up her career in order to have a baby. The opposing party was still having this affair with this other woman, and in fact had another baby with this woman unbeknownst to my client.

Five years past, and by the time my client figured all this out, her job skills had antiquated. Yet most of the assets in the case were still the husband’s non-marital assets that he brought into the marriage to begin with. He thought he was looking pretty, and my client had no ability to be awarded those assets. Since most of the assets in this case were non-marital, there wasn’t a whole lot to claim as marital property. We could ask for monthly traditional alimony, but instead of doing that we in addition demanded a Lump Sum award of alimony from his non-marital estate. And we demanded the jury award it to us. Long and short, this case ended up settling because the husband’s attorney saw the very large liability he had for the jury awarding a portion of his client’s non-marital assets to my client.

Contact The Shaw Law Firm

This could have been millions of dollars and possible liability for him, because we had a great case for an award of Lump Sum Alimony under these circumstances. This is one of the nuance factors of family law and divorce law that most people aren’t even aware of. And at Shaw Law Firm this is all we do, and we welcome your inquiries and questions. Thank you.

By: Scott Shaw

Lump Sum Alimony | Atlanta Divorce Laws

Lump Sum Alimony

Hello. My name is Scott Shaw, founder and principal of Shaw Law Firm, LLC. A law firm I founded in 1995. Child custody along with divorce and other areas of family law are our only area of legal practice. We don’t accept any other types of cases. In this video I will be discussing the topic of Lump Sum Alimony. When most people think of alimony, they think of a monthly payment to the other spouse.

Lump Sum Alimony is different though. It is different because it is a one time award of assets to the other spouse, and it’s a very dangerous thing to play around with. Lump Sum Alimony is so dangerous, because it is a way for a court or a jury to punish the other party, or to otherwise do equity. Because in a divorce, what usually happens is that each party is awarded their non-marital or premarital assets, and then the parties divide up the marital assets.

Non-Marital Assets

But what happens when most of the assets are one party’s non-marital assets, leaving very little to divide to the other party? In such a case, the court has the power to invade your non-marital estate even if you inherited it, owned it before marriage or whatever, and award some or all of it to your spouse. And a court can do so just because, in the right case it is a huge weapon and it should be scary to you.

Alimony Litigation Example

One case where this came into great effect for me involved a jury trial in which the opposing party, which is the husband in that case, brought a few million dollars into marriage. And he married my client, where the time of marriage was a six figure per year consultant, while he is having an affair with another woman. A few years into the marriage, my client gave up her career in order to have a baby. The opposing party was still having this affair with this other woman, and in fact had another baby with this woman unbeknownst to my client.

Five years past, and by the time my client figured all this out, her job skills had antiquated. Yet most of the assets in the case were still the husband’s non-marital assets that he brought into the marriage to begin with. He thought he was looking pretty, and my client had no ability to be awarded those assets. Since most of the assets in this case were non-marital, there wasn’t a whole lot to claim as marital property. We could ask for monthly traditional alimony, but instead of doing that we in addition demanded a Lump Sum award of alimony from his non-marital estate. And we demanded the jury award it to us. Long and short, this case ended up settling because the husband’s attorney saw the very large liability he had for the jury awarding a portion of his client’s non-marital assets to my client.

Contact The Shaw Law Firm

This could have been millions of dollars and possible liability for him, because we had a great case for an award of Lump Sum Alimony under these circumstances. This is one of the nuance factors of family law and divorce law that most people aren’t even aware of. And at Shaw Law Firm this is all we do, and we welcome your inquiries and questions. Thank you.

By: Scott Shaw