The Lawletter Vol. 50 No. 3

Brett R. Turner, Senior Attorney

              As I write this note, it is mid-October, there is a crisp cool snap in the air, and the college football season is in full swing. It is a good time to remember that in the United States of America, college football and college sports in general are very big business.

            A reminder of this point in the divorce context is Waldrip v. Waldrip, 2025 Ark. App. 29, 705 S.W.3d 8. The parties in that case were members of the Razorback Foundation, which provides financial support for athletics at the University of Arkansas. The Foundation raises money, in part, by granting donors the right to purchase desirable seating at University sporting events. Those who donate to the Foundation are given priority points, and those with higher amount of points get more priority in purchasing desirable seating.

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Lawletter Vol  48 No. 3

ChatGPT, LLMs, and Legal Research

Brett R. Turner—Senior Attorney

What Is ChatGPT? What Are LLMs?

      ChatGPT is one particular brand of a large language model, or LLM. LLMs are a recent technological advance in how computers and humans communicate with one another. In one direction, LLMs parse plain-language instructions and convert them into language which a computer can understand. In the opposite direction, LLMs allow computers to translate their output into ordinary language for humans, including not only sentences but also entire written products, such as memos or briefs.

      More specifically, LLMs work by starting with certain words (the prompt) and finding other words which are associated with those words in certain training material. An algorithm is then used to convert the chosen words into a product using ordinary human language.

      ChatGPT has been analogized to the automatic chat bots found on many support websites. The software begins with a prompt, scans through a specific list of documents, and produces the content of those materials in ordinary human language.

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The Lawletter Vol. 48 No. 1

Brett Turner, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group, Inc.

          Mother and Father married in 1996 and had two children. Mother filed for divorce in 2019, and the divorce was granted in July of 2021. Father was ordered to pay child support.

            In October 2021, three months after the divorce, Father filed to reduce child support, alleging that he had been terminated from his job. He then failed to make his October and November child support payments and was also not in compliance with the property division terms of the decree.

            Father was in the process of selling a piece of real estate, the Carpentersville property, awarded him in the decree. In mid-November, Mother moved the court to order the proceeds from that sale be placed in escrow, with the proceeds used to satisfy Father's child support and other obligations under the decree. The trial court granted the motion to the extent of holding the sale proceeds in escrow, and Father appealed.

            Father argued that the escrow order was an impermissible prejudgment attachment of funds in which Mother had no interest. The appellate court rejected the premise that the trial court issued a prejudgment attachment at all. "Instead, the trial court was exercising its equitable power to protect the two minor children and their right to support." In re Patel, 2022 IL App (1st) 211650, ¶ 23. "Hence, the trial court may order an injunction of proceeds to prevent the dissipation of assets that may be used to satisfy court-ordered child support and maintenance." Id.

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The Lawletter Vol 45 No 3

Brett Turner—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

            The ongoing COVID-19 crisis is affecting the lives of all Americans in many ways. One of those many ways is the exchange of children under custody and visitation orders.

            This is a very uncertain area of the law, with essentially no court decisions yet available, but several basic points can be noted. First, the mere existence of the crisis, if neither the children nor any parent has actually been exposed to COVID-19, is probably not alone a sufficient basis for noncompliance with any custody or visitation order. Indeed, emergency orders issued by the governor in at least three states—Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio—expressly list travel required by a custody or visitation order as essential for purposes of travel restrictions. These provisions would seem to suggest a policy that mere fear of COVID-19, without any specific evidence of a risk of exposure to the virus, is not alone a sufficient basis to modify an order or excuse noncompliance.

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The Lawletter Vol 44 No 4

Brett R. Turner—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

            One of the most common formalities required for family law agreements is that they must be in writing. At common law, premarital agreements were within the statute of frauds. The Uniform Premarital Agreements Act ("UPAA") requires that premarital agreement be both written and signed by both spouses. UPAA §§ 2, 5. Many states, by case law or statute, likewise require that divorce settlement agreements be written.  Amendments to family law agreements must also often be written.

            A generation ago, a writing requirement was easy to construe—the text of the agreement had to appear on paper. But in the 21st century, the world is increasingly paperless. It seems quite likely that the world of family law agreements will join the movement away from paper.

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The Lawletter Vol 43 No 8

 

Brett Turner—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

            Permanent alimony awards are still alive and well in many states, especially when the marriage is long and there is substantial income disparity between the spouses.  When the court determines the amount of alimony, what effect do the receiving spouse's assets have upon the award?

 

            A good example of a modern permanent alimony case is Sweeney v. Sweeney, 420 S.C. 69, 75, 800 S.E.2d 148, 151 (Ct. App. 2017). The marriage there lasted for 28 years from marriage to filing of the divorce action. The husband had gross income of $34,100 per month, or $409,200 per year.  The wife's gross income was very limited. Sweeney was clearly a permanent alimony case.

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The Lawletter Vol 43 No 3
Brett Turner—Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

     Persons who suffer from serious disabilities can apply for and receive Social Security Disability ("SSD"). When a parent receives SSD, dependency benefits are also paid to the parent's dependents.

     In the context of child support, a majority of states consider the noncustodial parent's SSD dependency benefits to be a form of child support, paid to the child from amounts previously withheld from the income of the parent. They are treated as income for purposes of child support, but the noncustodial parent then gets a dollar-for-dollar offset against child support for the amount of dependency benefits received by the child. Read More

The Lawletter Vol 42 No 1

Brett Turner, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

      In Curtis v. Curtis, 887 N.W.2d 249 (Minn. 2016), the wife sought spousal support in a divorce case. But she received, as part of her share of the marital property, an Ameritrade account worth over $2 million.

     The trial court held that the income from this account constituted income for purposes of spousal support. The account was invested in growth-oriented securities and produced income of less than $3,000 per year. This income was not sufficient to meet the wife's support needs. But the husband proved that the account could be reinvested into income-oriented securities at a rate of 7% per year and earn $9,500 per month in income. On this basis, the trial court imputed $9,500 per month income to the wife, and found that she had no need for spousal support. Minnesota's intermediate appellate court affirmed, and the wife appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

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The Lawletter Vol 41 No 9

Brett R. Turner, Senior Attorney,National Legal Research Group

     The South Carolina Supreme Court recently considered a case that provides a wealth of guidance on business valuation questions. Moore v. Moore, 414 S.C. 490, 779 S.E.2d 533 (2015).

     The issue was one that arises often in divorce cases—is the goodwill of a business part of the business's value for purposes of a divorce case? Adopting the majority rule nationwide, the court held that the enterprise goodwill of the business is included, but that the individual goodwill of the owner is not included. Stated differently, the value includes goodwill that is transferable to another owner, but it does not include goodwill that is not transferable and resides in the owner individually.

The practical question, which has arisen in dozens of cases nationwide, is how to distinguish between the two types of goodwill. The court recognized, as most other courts have done, that goodwill need not be entirely enterprise or entirely individual. Businesses get their customers from many sources, and it is quite possible that some of those sources are individual to the owner, while others are transferable with the enterprise. For example, a dental practice might draw half of its customers from the individual reputation of the dentists, but the other half from the convenient location of its office building.

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The Lawletter Vol 41 No 4

Brett Turner, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group

     A perennial problem in family law practice is arbitrary judges who dislike family law cases and impose strict time limits upon trials. Appellate courts are aware of this problem, and in extreme cases they have granted relief.

     In Kilnapp v. Kilnapp, 140 So. 3d 1051 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014), the trial judge set a three-hour limit on the hearing. After only an hour had passed, the trial court abruptly ended the hearing. The wife had presented only one witness, and the husband's counsel had not even finished with direct examination of the husband. The appellate court summarily reversed. "The trial court erred when it denied the husband his basic and fundamental right to due process, specifically the right to be heard." Id. at 1054.

     The husband did not have, of course, a right to be heard at unlimited length. For example, even if the husband honestly wanted an entire week of testimony, the trial court had discretion to impose a reasonable time limit.

     But the time limit imposed in Kilnapp was unreasonable, in two different ways. First, a reasonable time limit should apply equally to both parties. In Kilnapp, the wife was able to present all of her evidence, while the husband was able to present only some of his.

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