Law Blog

As the economy continues to get hit, bankruptcy filings also keep growing. Over the last 12 months LegalMatch.com has had several thousand customers come to our site seeking consumer bankruptcy attorneys. I was curious to see if our numbers matched up with those from the American Bankruptcy Institute, which tallied official federal records for consumer bankruptcy filings in 2008.  The following are LegalMatch’s top bankruptcy states: 

         State            Percentage of Total Filings

1. CA               14%
2. FL                8%
3. NY              5%
4. IL                 4%
5. TX               4%
6. VA               4%
7. OH              4%
8. MI               3%
9. AZ               3%
10. NJ              3%

Our top ten was very similar to the results from the American Bankruptcy Institute, with California leading the way in filings for 2008.

A few states are over-represented relative to their population on both lists. Florida, for instance, has significantly more consumer bankruptcy customers coming to LegalMatch.com than New York and Texas, who both outnumber Floridians substantially. Arizona and New Jersey also make the top ten despite being 14^th and 11^th in population.

Why is Florida being hit so hard? Florida is always near the top in every other negative economic indicator, such as foreclosures. Some Florida developments are beginning to resemble ghost towns full of brand new empty houses. Markets such as Florida suffer the most from boom and bust periods, which leads to higher bankruptcy rates as more and more residents run into problems from their radically devalued homes.

California may have suffered from a similar malaise; Bloomberg reported that February 2009 house prices in California dropped an average of 41% from February 2008, compared to only a 16% drop nationally over the same period. 58% of home sales during this time were foreclosure sales, surely a significant reason for the dramatic declines in value.

Looking at stats such as foreclosure rates, bankruptcy rates, and other economic statistics indicates that all these things are related. If one state is suffering in one area it is likely also suffering in another. Stay tuned to LegalMatch for more analysis of economic trends and how your state might be faring during this massive economic downturn.

In the past 12 months LegalMatch.com has received tens of thousands of customers seeking child custody attorneys. I was curious how the majority of these customers were related to the children involved in these custody disputes. After looking into our database, this is what I found:

• 48% were the child’s mother 
• 44% were their father
• 5% were grandparents
• 2% listed themselves as “other”
• Less than 1% were step-parents

Not too much of a surprise there: the vast majority of these people are the child’s parents.

These statistics also closely match a Census data footnote reporting that as of 2007, more than 6% of children were living with their grandparents. Hopefully the courts hearing these child custody cases from grandparents are not unfairly giving them less benefit of the doubt due to preconceptions of what a family is “supposed” to be. The rise in “grandfamilies” and grandparents contesting child custody may be based on the modern realities of single parent households according to the Wall Street Journal.

But wait a minute… are the WSJ’s terribly lit pictures and ominous statistics supposed to indicate that grandparents raising kids is some kind of bad development? (Not necessarily; the point instead seems to be bemoaning the economic hardships facing senior parents.) I would welcome more involvement of grandparents in child rearing. Half of my family is one generation removed from a non-western social model where this kind of family was the norm. The household was mom, dad, their mom and dad, maybe even their mom and dad, and the kids.

In my view it is unfortunate that the American nuclear family is a one generation family.  Will times like this make Americans reevaluate our own social engineering? Probably not, but it can’t hurt to establish a dialogue about it. Although the nuclear family encourages mobility and individualism, (and thus buying more stuff) creating cohesive family units and support structures may be more important now than it has been in a while. I’m not peddling some cryptically hidden “family values” social agenda, but if you’re a young professional or a young newly married couple thinking of making the big move away from mom and dad, give it a second thought. Extended family networks, rather than things like day care and babysitters, could come in handy.

Each year, thousands of clients seek divorce attorneys through LegalMatch.com. News of recent layoffs and stock portfolio value drops carries a human side, with increased tensions over money management between spouses as the result. Rising stress over unemployment, change in routine, foreclosures, spending too much or saving too little can place a significant strain on a relationship.

But even with increased martial frictions, how has this economic downturn actually affected marriages in the U.S.? Given all the speculation, it seemed fitting to see what the actual statistics would show.  From January 1 to March 31, LegalMatch client intake reports show a 7 percent increase in the rate of separation in 2009 over the same time period for 2008. This isn’t exactly an earth shattering jump, but still it is significant.

Of course, those facing harder economic times often reassess the value of their assets- and in a marriage that often means taking a good look at your combined finances. After all, divorce can be expensive, and separating from your spouse often means forgoing a second income. Some states even consider debt acquired during the marriage as community property, potentially meaning a spouse could be forced to pay the mortgage for a house in which they no longer reside. Spousal support and/or child support may be too much to pay for an individual should the marriage dissolve. The downside is that it may mean staying in a marriage that no longer works for many couples.

Right now it seems the majority of couples are choosing to weather the economic storm together, for better or worse. It will be interesting to see if this still holds true as the recession stretches on over the coming months.

According to LegalMatch.com data, 27% of the victims of domestic violence in the past 12 months did not report the incident to the police. These figures come from an analysis of anonymous customer intake reports between now and April 2008. Studies by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) show that victims of crime are less likely to report incidents involving non-strangers than strangers. Together these figures make sense: because domestic violence involves intimate partners and family members, people may not want the police involved.

Other reasons such as those brought up here may further contribute to a lack of reporting. Mandatory policies based on political grandstanding plus the limited repertoire of tools available to the Police may make people hesitant to call the boys in blue. When a cop’s toolbox is generally limited to handcuffs and a gun, there are only so many things they can do.

What is the exact problem we are looking at when over a fourth of victims are not reporting crimes to the police? That cops should be better trained to deal with these issues, and people should therefore be more encouraged to call them?

I’m skeptical of a solution that sees more police involvement in family disputes as an improvement. Obviously there are situations where the police should show up: a large amount of murders occur between spouses where the offender should have already been in jail, or should have been under more rigorous supervision from law enforcement officials.

On the other hand, there are also situations where police presence might have done more harm than good. The recent murder of 3 officers in Pittsburgh occurred after the shooter’s mother requested that the police come and kick her son out of her house. The police shouldn’t have to expect that an armed lunatic is going to greet them at the door of a domestic disturbance call, but situations like this will stay in the back of officers’ minds and make dealing with these calls all the more difficult.   

Should more people be reporting domestic violence? If there is a genuine crime occurring, yes. But like so many other issues in the criminal justice system, the law is often called on to fix situations it is ill-equipped to handle. Domestic violence and domestic disturbance runs the gamut from genuine crimes that warrant incarceration or arrest, to family disputes where guns and handcuffs may serve to only make matters much worse. Although there are serious problems associated with the non-reporting of violent crimes, there is a context. Should the police be involved in each and every domestic dispute? Does the use or threat of violence always warrant the involvement of the police and of the courts? I do not think so.

One of the more curious aspects of our financial crisis is the decline in divorces as of late. Apparently the cost of divorce is making those with less think longer about cutting things short. (Thank you, thank you, I’m here every night).

Nonetheless, here at LegalMatch.com tens of thousands of people have logged on to find divorce attorneys within the past 12 months. I was curious about their demographics, and here is what the data was telling me:

• The Median Age for a person seeking a divorce in the US: 37
• Median Number of Children: 1

37 years old seems about right for a starter divorce.  Plus, the Median number of children matches US Census results; the national average for children per household in the US is 0.90.

Not much stands out here separating your average divorcé from your average U.S. citizen, which is not surprising considering almost half of all marriages end in divorce in the United States.

So now we know who is getting divorces…are they decreasing in number? Not from what I can tell.

Looking back over the 12 month period, there is no significant difference in month to month numbers, nor is there any decline in the numbers from 2008 to 2009. And again, this is tens of thousands of customers seeking divorce, not just a small sample size.

Fear not divorce attorneys! The American Divorce Industry is apparently alive and well.