Author: raifordpalmer

Raiford D. Palmer, AAML, is a divorce attorney concentrating in complex divorce litigation and collaborative law in Chicago and the suburbs. He is a shareholder in STG Divorce Law (Sullivan Taylor, Gumina & Palmer P.C.). Raif was named a Leading Lawyer in Family Law in Illinois for 2015, among the top 5% of family law attorneys in Illinois. Raif has maintained a perfect 10.0 Avvo.com rating for several years, and has over thirty five-star client reviews as well. Raif is proud to be a Fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers ("AAML") as well as the Collaborative Law Institute of Illinois ("CLII"). Raif is a mediator, having mediated complex financial matters and parenting issues, and a Guardian ad Litem for the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court. He has extensive jury and bench trial experience, and has argued an appeal before the Illinois Appellate Court, Second District. Raif is also a speaker regarding trial practice, collaborative law, and dissolution of marriage issues both for attorneys in continuing legal education courses as well as for groups serving the general public. Raif has published articles and presented seminars on behalf of the National Business Institute, the DuPage Bar Association, and the Collaborative Law Institute of Illinois. Raif concentrates his practice in high net worth and complex asset divorce matters, especially those involving business ownership interests. He handles litigated cases as well as collaborative and cooperative law matters.

How to Make Your Divorce Lawyer Poorer – Document Discovery Compliance

tax-records pic

How can you make your divorce lawyer poorer? Comply with discovery requests in a timely manner. A common mistake clients make in divorce cases is failing to produce documents in discovery. They either think their spouse does not need all the material requested, the other lawyer is just harassing them with the request, or that their spouse should “know” how much money they have anyway. This head-in-the sand attitude is a loser and will only cost money in the end.

Discovery is the process by which attorneys seek information from the other party, by use of a list of questions (known as “Interrogatories”), a “Request for Production of Documents,” by depositions (statements taken under oath), and subpoenas (court-ordered document requests sent to third parties like banks or employers).

Court rules allow parties to request information from each other, usually going back three to five years. While certain information may not seem relevant for a given case, relevance for discovery has a broad definition. Information that has ‘some tendency to lead to the production of relevant evidence’ is discoverable. So even though three year old bank statements may not seem relevant, you do have to produce them. Also, documents you can readily obtain even though they are not in your possession (like bank statements) have to be produced. So just because you don’t have them in a file cabinet does not excuse you from obtaining them. You may need to download statements from your bank online, or request older ones from a bank or credit card issuer.

The sooner you can produce documents to your lawyer, the better. The better organized you are, for example having paper documents in order and grouped by account – the more in legal fees you will save. If you turn over a box filled with jumbled-up paper, attorneys or paralegals will need to sort through it which costs you money.

Our firm prefers that clients send us scans of documents, on a USB drive or by email. This saves the client some money spent organizing and scanning documents.

Please send everything, and I mean everything, responsive to requests if at all possible. If you cannot get something, tell us so we can help you get it, or at least we can then report to the other attorney that it cannot be easily obtained.

Don’t play hide and seek with documents. Counsel for your spouse will eventually figure out what is missing, and spend fees sending us letters and filing motions with the court requesting compliance. Then we have to bill you to read these letters and respond to the motions. This is money wasted and does not get you closer to completing your case. Courts have little patience with people they perceive are hiding information.

Restricted Stock Units (“RSU”) treated like Stock Options by Illinois Divorce Court

In Re Marriage of Micheli, 2014 IL App (2d) 121245 (July 31, 2014)

In this case, the trial court divided all marital assets equally, including vested stock options, but then awarded all unvested stock options and Restricted Stock Units (“RSU”) to the husband.

Restricted Stock Units, like options, are a form of deferred compensation from an employer. The units are awarded to an employee, and when the restriction terminates, the RSUs become common stock. The RSUs yield dividends to the employee before they vest.

The Appellate Court reversed, holding that awarding all unvested options and RSUs to the husband was an abuse of discretion. To explain, trial courts have fairly wide latitude or “discretion” to award marital property equitably to parties in divorce, but there are limits to this discretion.

The Appellate Court reasoned that all unvested options must be apportioned at the time of judgment, just like stock options as set forth in Illinois law at 750 ILCS 5/503(b)(3). It further held that RSUs were analogous to options and therefore also needed to be divided between the parties as well.

The trial court stated “The uncertainty of the values of the unvested stock options and RSUs is not an impediment to an equitable distribution when they become vested.”

If you need assistance with a new divorce or would like a second opinion in an ongoing case, please contact our office to schedule a phone or in person consultation with me at 630.665.7676.