Family Law Attorney: Alimony Reform Law Would Need Reworking Before Coming Up Again in Legislature

Zephyrhills, FL (Law Firm Newswire) April 19, 2012 – The Florida Legislature failed to act on highly controversial alimony reform bills this season. The bills would have changed alimony law and given rigid structure to how alimony is allocated in the Sunshine State.

Florida’s state house was poised to take on alimony reform in the footsteps of Massachusetts, which passed sweeping reform last year. But in a short session with other priorities like cutting the budget and redrawing the legislative districts, the lawmakers let alimony reform on the table this year.

“The bills were not going to be workable as they were originally written,” said Zephyrhills family law attorney Marcie Baker. “They were going to need a lot of work before they could have come up for a vote.”

Proponents of new alimony rules argue that permanent alimony is unfair and that there should be a scale in place that helps judges determine alimony, in large part, by the length of the marriage. People in favor of reform efforts also have said that giving family court judges some framework for alimony would help it be more evenly assessed.
Opponents to the legislation say neither of the two bills takes into account any of the thousands of variables that would make a specific amount for a specific number of years impractical.

“You have cases where there are children with special needs when one of the parents is going to have to be that child’s caregiver or cases where one of the divorcing spouses has been out of the workforce for more than 20 years,” Baker said. “Every case is unique and most cases will have factors that will make a locked-in system impractical.”
Alimony reform proponents have said they plan to bring the issue up again during the next legislative session.

Marcie Baker is a partner in the firm of Alston & Baker, P. A. To contact a Zephyrhills Social Security lawyer, Zephyrhills accident attorney, or Zephyrhills divorce lawyer, visit http://www.alstonbakerlaw.com.

Alston & Baker, P.A.
5518 Seventh Street
Zephyrhills, Florida 33542
Call: 813-779-8895
Toll-free: 1-888-500-5245

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