NJ Family Law Attorneys

After 10 years of marriage, actress Debra Messing and TV producer/actor Daniel Zelman have filed for divorce. Messing is most famous for her role in “Will & Grace,” which introduced a large television audience to this talented and funny actress. Zelman endeared himself to audiences for his work in “Damages” and “The Practice.” The couple met in the 1990s, when both attended NYU’s graduate school. Getting to know each other as classmates and friends first, they eventually worked together in the timeless classic “Romeo and Juliet.” Soon the romance blossomed, and the couple married on Sept. 3, 2000. In 2004, the couple welcomed a son to the family. A surprise announcement on Dec. 20 alerted fans and paparazzi alike to the divorce proceedings between Messing and Zelman. In an interesting twist, the split may be personal, but the couple resumes its joint living arrangements for the sake of the minor child. While both have resolved to go their own ways, they do not intend to let this decision affect the wellbeing of the youngster. After a decade of marriage, the couple is working hard to keep divorce proceedings and personal interactions amicable. Since they have a long pre-relationship friendship to look back on, they might just be able to succeed where so many other couples have failed. Of course, only time and the potential of new love interests will truly determine of this divorce plan thrives or fails.

It's really too bad that “New Girl” star and indie rocker Zooey Deschanel and Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard recently announced their separation and divorce; everyone was hoping that children of the couple would turn out to be born rockers like their parents. Why did they divorce? Perhaps some insights can be gained from previous comments each of them made about their approach to relationships in general. At one point, Deschanel stated that marriage required a commitment and re-commitment each and every day. By contrast, Gibbard wrote that he would rather “make great records than make great relationships” in a 2008 magazine article. He also said that while relationships come and go, his band was constant. These different perspectives might explain why the couple divorced after only two years of marriage. According to Deschanel's publicist, the split has been amicable. Another clue to their divorce is Deschanel's comment that it was hard to see her husband constantly on tour for his band. Although she stated that he was “really good at calling,” all the time on the road might have worn at the relationship, as it has for so many other Hollywood couples. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony: Many of these famous divorces were attributable at least in part to one or both individual's long stints away from home. Oh well – at least the couple lasted longer than Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries.

If you’re going through a divorce, it can be tempting to spy on your ex by recording the phone conversations on the home phone line or tracking the sites your ex uses on the family computer. Maybe you think you need some sort of evidence, or maybe you just wonder what your ex is doing and with whom he or she is spending his or her time. This sort of impulse is only natural, but following through on it is not advisable. The state of New Jersey has multiple laws against invasion of privacy and there are multiple case precedents that clarify that this right to privacy doesn’t “dissolve” within the vows of marriage. Legally, even married people have a right to privacy from each other. But what if you suspect that your ex is interested in spying on you? Although the laws and precedents appear to protect your right to privacy, there are also some fairly simple measures you might take to protect that right for yourself. You might start by clearing the trail you leave on the internet. Here are some tips to help keep your online business private: Change your passwords. An easy precaution that’s so easily forgotten is just to change your passwords. It’s a good idea for anyone to change their passwords periodically, but this is especially true for those going through a divorce. Your spouse is likely to have used your passwords or learned your passwords for various accounts such as your social media accounts and your debit card, etc. Now is a good time to change those to something your spouse would not easily guess. Clear your internet cookies. Cookies are small bits of code downloaded from internet sites. Usually we download these without knowing about them, when we search the internet. For the most part, internet cookies are intended to make downloading and interacting with a particular page faster and easier in the future. However, some cookies can be hacked to allow spying by third parties. Moreover, even if the cookies you’ve downloaded are not malicious, they can still allow others, who use the same computer, to track what sites you’ve visited on the internet. Fortunately, clearing the cookies from your internet browser is usually pretty easy. Depending on which browser you use, you can usually delete all of your cookies with a few simple steps. You can look up specific directions for your browser on the internet or in your browser’s help menu, but usually the option to delete cookies is under your “tools” or “options” menu found in the tool bar at the top of your browser window. Clear your internet cache. Closely related to clearing your internet cookies is clearing your internet cache. Most browsers store a history of sites you’ve visited in order to make returning to visited sites easier for you. If you can’t remember the exact URL for a site you visited, your browser usually has this information stored and can suggest sites you’ve already visited once you type in just one or two letters from the URL. The problem with this is that if you share a computer, you may not want others who use the computer to know which sites you’ve been visiting. Luckily, clearing your internet cache is even easier than clearing your internet cookies. The option for doing this is usually in the same menu as the option for clearing your cookies. You can choose between clearing just your recent browsing history or all of your browsing history. You can find more specific directions for your browser on the internet or in your browser’s help menu, but again, just like the cookies clearing option, the cache clearing option is usually under the “tools” or “options” menu found at the top of the browser window. Set up anonymous browsing. If you would prefer not to have to delete your cache and cookies every time you use an internet browser, you may also have the option of choosing to “browse anonymously” in a particular browser. Not every version of every browser allows this option, but most do. You can often find this option under the “tools” or “options” menu in your browser’s toolbar at the top of the window when open. In most browsers, when you choose this option, the browser will no longer store a cache. Sometimes, it might still store cookies, however. Look into your browser to find out what options are available. Use a public anonymizing proxy. If you’re really worried about others tracking your internet activity, another option would be to use a public proxy. The purpose of a proxy is to disguise your computer’s IP address. Every computer has a unique IP address. If someone were really interested in tracking your online activity, they might look for transactions done using your computer’s IP address. One way to make this more difficult for them is to use an online service that disguises your IP address. You might search online for “public proxies” to find out more about this. However, proxy services themselves can often be unsecure. Sharing a disguised IP address through a public server sometimes allows others who share that IP address more access to your interactions than they would otherwise have. Different proxy services offer various ways to confront this problem, but it’s something to consider when comparing services. Be careful about where you store your private data. In some previous New Jersey court cases, data stored on the family computer hard drive was considered non-private information. Maybe you keep your accounting records or backup copies of your emails stored on your shared computer hard drive. If this is the case, you might want to consider moving this data to a cloud storage system. A cloud storage system is a network of computers that stores your private data, encrypted so that you’re the only one who can access that data with a password. There are many cloud storage service providers to choose from. You might look this up on the internet to compare prices and services. If cloud storage isn’t for you, at the very least, consider moving your private data onto a portable flash drive. Flash drives can be found at almost any drug store. They’re small and with a flash drive, you can carry your data around with you on your keychain, far away from your ex’s prying eyes. Avoid spyware and key-loggers. There are many ways a tech-savvy ex might spy on your computer use, if the person knows how. Spyware is a bit of code that a user might download from the internet without knowing it. The spyware sends information, about the sites visited or keystrokes used, back to another party without the user’s permission. A tech-savvy ex might conceivably use this kind of technology to track your internet use. To combat spyware, there are many brands of antispyware and firewall protection you can purchase and install onto your computer from a CD or download from the internet. Antispyware and firewall protection can help you protect your computer from malicious software, but it’s also possible for a very tech savvy and nosy ex to use hardware to spy on you rather than software. In other words, if your ex has access to your computer, they may be able to install a device that takes input directly from the keystrokes of your computer. This is called a “key-logger.” A key-logger is often some kind of device that physically sits underneath your keyboard inside your computer and sends information about every keystroke you make to another device. If you suspect that your ex has installed a key-logger device into your computer, you can take the computer in to a computer repair shop to have an expert inspect it for you. Use common sense when deciding what to post online. Surprisingly many divorcing people get themselves into trouble by serving up incriminating evidence directly into their spouse’s hands. They do this by posting private information for all their friends to see on their social media profiles such as Facebook. Whenever you’re posting pictures onto your Facebook account, or posting comments onto your Twitter account, think about how your ex might read or see what you’re posting. Even if your ex isn’t connected to your public media accounts directly as a “friend” or a “follower,” chances are that you’ve got plenty of mutual friends that are. If you say something rude about your ex, or post a picture of yourself with your new dating partner, you can bet the information will get back to your ex. It’s important to remember also that you’re likely in an emotional time in your life. It may seem like a good idea to post a rude comment about your ex now, but once you’ve moved on later, you may regret petty comments you made on your social profiles. The problem is that once a comment is made online, it’s very hard to take back. It can even sometimes be used as evidence against you in court. Use caution and compassion when deciding what to post online. Luckily Facebook, GooglePlus, and some other social networking sites now allow you to arrange your friends into different groups. Maybe this would be a good time to put your ex into the group of friends that won’t get all of your updates. That’s at least a start, but remember that even if your ex doesn’t directly receive your updates, anything you share with mutual friends is likely to reach your ex anyway. This leads to another question: Should you stay “friends” with your ex on your social media accounts? In each case, there’s likely to be a different answer. There are some important factors to consider, however. If you and your ex have a cordial relationship, deleting him or her from your account might be very hurtful. If you’ve agreed to remain friends in real life, nominally keeping them as a “friend” on your social media accounts might be an important part of showing that you care for your ex in this friendly way. Social media accounts can also be a good way to keep each other informed of the most important updates without having to speak to each other directly. Maybe you’d really like your ex to know if you got a new job, for example. If you post your news about your new job on your profile for all your friends to see and your ex posts a congratulatory comment, you’ve just saved yourself a direct phone call to your ex but you can rest assured that they’ve gotten the news.

December 2010 did not usher in a joyous holiday season for pale beauty Scarlett Johansson and ruggedly handsome Ryan Reynolds. As other couples shopped for presents and attended parties together, the lights remained dimmed at their marital estate. In fact, the couple separated and announced to friends, family members and fans that a divorce would be next. Still, plenty of fans held out hope for the Hollywood power couple. Could their time apart merely be a trial separation? The answer came a short few days after the initial announcement. Confirmation occurred when Reynolds submitted divorce paperwork to the Los Angeles Superior Court. Johansson almost immediately filed a response. In spite of no prenuptial agreement even being entered, the divorce between the stars was amicable. Neither side requested financial support or assets in excess of the customary fifty-fifty split. Although only married since September 2008, a split was not a complete surprise. While divorce rumors follow most married celebrities, the fact that Johansson and Reynolds had virtually no joint appearance did make the scuttlebutt credible. In hindsight, there were also little hints dropped here and there in interviews, when the couple became more and more guarded about their marriage. With the ink on the divorce paperwork still drying, celebrity watchers have already romantically linked Scarlett Johansson to Sean Penn, while Ryan Reynolds has been seen with Agnes Fischer and also Sandra Bullock. Will they jump back into dating or take it easy? With the divorce just behind them, it is anyone’s guess how eager for a new long-term commitment they might be.

Could this be a harbinger of a coming divorce celebration trend, or is it just a single, quirky event? Billionaire Charles Bronfman and his wife, Bonnie, are divorcing after a brief marriage of just under three years. They have stated that although they have deep admiration and affection for one another, they could maintain a stronger friendship as single individuals than they could in a marriage. To celebrate the new status of their relationship, they invited 100 friends to a stylish cocktail party to assure them that both parties will be maintaining all of their friendships. In stark contrast to the many bitter divorces splashed across the society pages, this event helps guests realize that they don’t have to choose sides. There is no battle, no anger. The beautifully embossed invitations to the formal celebration maintain a cheerful and friendly tone. The Bronfmans say they realized that their varying interests were more than they could meld into a life together. While Bonnie enjoys an intellectual life full of lectures and learning, Charles would rather be on the golf course or enjoying a sunny winter in Florida. Opinions vary about the divorce celebration party hosted by the former chairman of the Seagram Company and his ex-wife. Many view it as a refreshing way to handle a major life change and reassure friends that all is well. Divorces can be confusing for friends and family, and the Bronfmans' party helps clarify the situation. Others find the idea quite awkward, raising etiquette questions that may not have clear answers.