One of the most frequent questions I am asked is whether or not a party should remain in the home or move out when divorce is filed. This blog answers that question for those who are married or unmarried but living with the joint homeowner.  The easiest way find to find the answer appropriate to your circumstances is to follow the flow chart below:  Read the rest of this entry »

We feel we should point out that, in the midst of your reading this blog entry, there is a very strong likelihood that you are presently under electronic surveillance. It is furthermore quite likely that you have been under said surveillance for some time. A good number of activities in which you’ve recently been involved have been observed, cataloged and indexed without your foreknowledge.  Certain things you’ve been doing under an assumption of privacy have been recorded and later seen by persons who do not have your best interests in mind. A handful of your more unpopular or controversial opinions, previously known only to you and certain trusted confidants, have been made available as a matter of public record.  Read the rest of this entry »

This is a misleading term. Grandparent Rights implies that grandparents indeed have some sort of legal rights as far as their grandchildren are concerned. Further, the term seems to imply that grandparents have legal standing to ask the court for visitation  with their grandchildren independent of the parents’ wishes. So it is generally disappointing for grandparents to learn that this is not reality.

NMSA  § 40-9-1 1978 is actually titled “Grandparent’s Visitation Privileges Act.” While the Act does give grandparents, in certain circumstances, the right to petition the court for visitation, it does not obligate the court to grant the request for visitation, even under those circumstances. As noted in the title, grandparents’ visitation is a privilege, not a right, even if one or more of the threshold statutory requirements for filing the Petition are met. Read the rest of this entry »

You may have seen the article in the newspaper or on television last week about a man named Paul Mueller who picked up two hitchhikers who proceeded to rob him, stab him and leave him for dead. What made the story stand out to me was what happened next.

Following the stabbing, the ruffians left the scene and the man, only “mostly-dead,” called for help repeatedly while stumbling down Darlington Place NW on Albuquerque’s Westside only to have his pleas fall on completely deaf ears. No one came to his aid. Eventually in a moment of desperation, he deliberately fell into the Richey family’s front window, and pleaded for their assistance hoping he had at last found his Good Samaritan.
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Supervised visitation is something of a pandemic in Bernalillo County. While supervised visits can serve a purpose, i.e. – a safe arena for a child to spend time with a parent, supervised visitation is an overused process in Albuquerque family law and custody cases and can be to the detriment of parental rights and innocent children. While cases of verifiable abuse or drug usage certainly merit supervision as well as any other abuse or neglect case under the auspices of the Department of Children Youth and Families (CYFD), the notion of supervised visits is more far-reaching than CYFD abuse and neglect cases. Read the rest of this entry »

Has Thanksgiving been lost? Lost to cheap electronics, half-price clothing deals, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday? After passing this weekend finding infinitely more references in the press to the above as well as the debates and conundrums regarding the mid-night openings, it became apparent that Thanksgiving was indeed lost. It is lost in every respect, figuratively and literally. The question now being posed is: Should it be found, and why should today’s public even care?

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One of the aims of the Cortez Family Law bLAWg is to present our readers with a better understanding of the legal process. Today’s bLAWg will delve into mind of the average attorney, with an emphasis on those of us who practice family law as a specialty. To put it another way, we want to establish a better understanding that attorneys are real human beings who expend a great deal of energy and deliberation on case work. Working towards fulfilling this aim, I wanted to spend some time today addressing some of the established negative clichés and misconceptions concerning practitioners of the legal profession. Read the rest of this entry »

I presume all my readers know that paternity is determined these days through DNA testing, also referred to as genetic testing.  Parentage isn’t questioned in every family law case, but when it is alleged I am certainly glad for a testing mechanism which achieves near-absolute certainty in my cases (~99.999%, as the tests assert). I can’t imagine dealing with the levels of uncertainty from the days when parentage had to be proven through other means.

So with the recent news of Justin Bieber and his paternity suit, I thought I’d wax reminiscent on some of the history of parentage cases before addressing how it relates to the teen idol. But if you want to get right to the Bieber part, click here. Read the rest of this entry »

Getting the exact custody arrangement you want can be as tricky as walking a tightrope over a pit of alligators. You really don’t want to mess it up. The consequences are severe and long-lasting.
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With this being Halloween, allow me to postulate a little on the realism of family law proceedings in Family Court.  Without frightening our clients too much, I would compare family court (at times) to the vampires of lore.

First, vampires cannot come into your home unless someone invites them.  Once the vampire is in your home, you cannot force it to leave.  And once it’s in, it can do things over which you have no control. Because no one would knowingly invite such a destructive force as a vampire into one’s home, the vampire generally has to seduce and trick one of the occupants into inviting it.  Read the rest of this entry »