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The recent announcement that Kelsey Grammer and his wife Camille are divorcing has been big news. What’s an even bigger story is the fact that the multi-millionaire Grammer did not have a prenuptial agreement. A recent article on a pop-culture website gives us a list of the top ten celebrities that didn’t have a prenup when they needed it most. Here is a sampling from the list of famous and most expensive divorces without a prenup. When Mel Gibson got divorced after 28 years of marriage, he was forced to give up a full 50 percent of the money he earned over the course of their marriage.The result? A whooping $900 million was divided between the two, leaving his ex-wife Robyn with $450 million. Another major notable divorce was the dream couple Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe. Both are household names, but at the time of their divorce, Reese Witherspoon was making approximately 8 times per movie what her husband earned, $20 million a picture versus $2.5 million. Their lack of a prenup caused Witherspoon to split the savings fifty-fifty. A prenup-lacking divorce ... Read more..

The economic downturn is placing major stresses on marriages today, and there is another side effect showing itself: when couples divorce but don’t have the economic resources to move out from their family home. Couples are left to weather the emotional difficulty of living with a spouse that they’ve separated from, because a lack of resources and a tough housing market make it impossible to maintain two separate households. It’s divorce without the separation. ABC Primetime followed one of these couples, Chris and Shari, of Tempe, Arizona, who are in just that situation. They live in a million-dollar house in a nice neighborhood, but the dropping value of the house with the onset of the recession has severely limited their options. As the housing market plummeted, so did their 18-year marriage. They gathered a family meeting with their three kids, where they broke the news about their separation. “They kind of took turns telling us stuff,” said oldest daughter Carissa. “They always assured us, ‘we’re never going to do anything like this, that will never be us that gets divorced. We’re going ... Read more..

Today marks the start of the second week of the Summer Session in International and Comparative Law in Giessen Germany.  Pictured at the top of this post is the “castle,” the building where my class in International Criminal Law meets.  Inside this charming old exterior are some of the modern and fully equipped classrooms of Justus Liebig University, although the Justus Liebig Law School itself is physically located elsewhere. My International Criminal Law class has 34 students.  There are 15 students from Marquette University Law School, 4 students from the University of Wisconsin Law School, and 4 students from other U.S. law schools.  The remaining 11 students come from law schools around the world, including Germany, Ethiopia, Turkey, Luxembourg, South Africa, Norway, Greece and Brazil. Giessen is a college town.  It is dominated by University buildings spread throughout the town, much like Madison, Wisconsin.  There are numerous outdoor beer gardens and cafes, and the local population seems to spend much of their time sitting outside and drinking either coffee or beer.  It seems appropriate that the word “Giessen” translates into english as ... Read more..

In many criminal cases, it is appropriate for the Broward criminal defense attorney to file a motion to suppress evidence obtained by a law enforcement agency during its investigation of an alleged crime. The motion is a written request to the judge presiding over the case, which asks him or her to exclude certain evidence from consideration. If a defendant’s rights were violated, for example, it is inappropriate to consider the evidence obtained as a result. Motions to suppress are based on the exclusionary rule, a legal rule that primarily exists only in the United States. This doctrine states that the evidence against the defendant should be excluded from consideration at a criminal trial if the police or other law enforcement agents did not legally obtain the evidence or statements. The law has become tougher on this issue over time, but the general rule is that “fruit of the poisonous tree” may not be used against a criminal defendant. That means that information or evidence that would not have been obtained but for a ... Read more..

Let us review where we have been. In Part I, we asked the question: What causes people to be successful in their careers? I stated that I believe that understanding and developing “soft side skills,” and not just technical skills, will provide the best opportunities for a successful career. We reviewed evidence from leading universities that much more than half of job success comes from people skills. Many people who pursue a professional career think of their “work” as their technical expertise, but as one moves up in an organization, it becomes clear that dealing with people is of at least equal significance. Communication as a Premier People Skill We also noted that much of what we call people skills is really effective communication. We demonstrated how communication thinking and communication skills drive success in the legal field as well as business.[1] We used the model developed by Robert Bolton in People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts to show that certain attitudes support a person’s successful efforts at effective communication, attitudes that produce good relationships before formal ... Read more..