Gitlin on Divorce: A Guide to Illinois Family Law, 4th Edition, 2019-2020
Highlights
Key New Developments
- Illinois maintenance law is again rewritten and the 2019-2020 edition of Gitlin on Divorce fully incorporates the impact of this law.
The 2019-20 release included:
Overview Chapter: The overview chapter also is completely updated and heavily rewritten to more fully integrate all of the recent changes to Illinois family law.
Collaborative Divorce Chapter (Ch. 1A new in 2018): This edition of Gitlin on Divorce includes a significantly reworked chapter regarding collaborative divorce, including references to the 2018 Supreme Court Rule and new appendixes.
Property Ch. (Ch. 8): The property chapter incorporates Public Act 100-871 in light of the changes to the law regarding beneficiary designations and includes a discussion of the United States Supreme Court 2018 decision in Sveen v. Melin.
Premarital Agreements (Ch. 9): The premarital agreement chapter is one of the few chapters that had not earlier gone through extensive updates. But with the two significant 2018 appellate court decisions, this chapter is now brought up to date with the rest of Gitlin on Divorce. We now break down case law on those that are decided under common law and decided under the Illinois Uniform Premarital Agreement Act.
Child Support (Ch. 10): The child support chapter has been updated to fully integrate the changes due to the reworking of the 2019 maintenance guidelines. Throughout the child support chapter, we have been careful not to use the phrase “minimum” child support guidelines because with the income-shares legislation, Illinois simply has our child guidelines. The treatment of dependency exemptions has been updated to make it clear that it is only the value of the dependency exemption that is suspended through 2025 and therefore allocation the exemption (and with it the under-age-17 child tax credit) remains important.
Allocation of Parental Responsibilities (Ch. 11): The chapter formerly tiled custody has been updated to include a section regarding 50/50 shared parenting time (custody) and the aggressive legislative agenda for some in the father’s rights community to change Illinois laws to create a 50/50 presumption. This 2019-20 update includes a Section by Dr. Sol Rappaport, Ph.D., ABPP, providing an expert’s opinion on shared parenting.
Relocation (Ch. 12): Our Illinois Supreme Court weighed in on its second case under our reworded relocation statute. This edition discusses the recent In re Fatkin decision that essentially ruled that the appellate court should not substitute itself for the trial court where the trial court reviewed and applied the 10-plus statutory factors.
Visitation (Ch. 14): Public Act 100-706 is integrated into this update of our visitation chapter that amends Section 602.9 of the so-called grandparent visitation provisions.
Maintenance (Ch. 15): The maintenance chapter has again been comprehensively reworked and edited. The 2018 update had addressed the impact of Public Act 100-520 that expanded the maintenance guidelines to include cases with a combined gross annual income of $500,000, and eliminated the term permanent maintenance, substituting the term “indefinite maintenance.” The 2018 update correctly anticipated the enactment of what became Public Act 100-923 that was necessary because of the loss of deductibility of maintenance for cases entered on or after January 1, 2019. The 2019-20 update completes the rewrite to the maintenance chapter fully incorporating the overlooked changes to our statute.
Vacatur (16B): The vacatur chapter has been updated because in 2016 Section 2-1401 of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure had been amended to incorporate comprehensive provisions for potential meritorious defenses against the movant including new provisions involving domestic violence. This update recognizes the fact that no longer is a discussion necessary of a 2-1401 petition being predicated on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction in terms of void orders as ones being beyond the court’s specific statutory authority.
Attorney Fee (Ch. 19): The Attorney Fee Chapter has been updated to contain a new section, titled, “Attorney’s Failure to Control Client’s Litigiousness.” Clearly, a lawyer cannot control an overly litigious client other than withdraw. Nevertheless, the lawyer can continue to represent a client who is overly litigious; case law has not been kind to lawyers in this circumstance. The attorney fee chapter has been further reworked at § 19-2[g] “Those Who Lack Standing to Seek Attorney Fees” in light of the 2018 In re Marriage of Kane decision. Further, the impact of Illinois Supreme Heroy decision cannot be understated in contribution petitions. The author recommends that the statute be modified to reflect the true intent of the “Leveling” amendments in this regard.
Domestic Violence (Ch. 21): The author considered renaming the domestic violence chapter intimate-partner violence based upon the current terms of art. Accordingly, the domestic violence chapter is edited with a new introduction that addresses the distinction between intimate partner and domestic violence.
Third Volume: The Do’s and Don’ts Lists for individuals in parental allocation cases are now updated to be in keeping with the current state of the art including Adverse Childhood Experiences and divorce with a focus on the family system dynamics in the cases that divorce lawyers and judges address in their day-to-day lives.
Forms: The summons form has been updated to be in keeping with the current electronic filing requirements and the required Supreme Court Rule 1 language. Other changes have been made including critical changes to the model marital settlement agreement.
