Alimony Summit

I attended the alimony summit yesterday at the MCLE (Mass continuing legal education) -- to check on updates and the thoughts of sitting judges, etc.

The essential update is this: make explicit mention of alimony in your separation agreement and if possible provide some details -- rationales -- for the details.

Pierce ... still confuses practitioners

Survival or merger ... so much depends on which side you represent and what you may have worked out for the long term between the parties.  I think that I still favor survival (that is where the details of agreement are not meant to be subject to further judicial review) but where parties could simply not come to a complete agreement for say. duration or termination, merger might still be the better choice.

Of course, as I have written before on www.legalsolutionsllc.net in my articles http://www.legalsolutionsllc.net/Articles/ that fact that you "survived" your alimony clause really doesn't mean squat.  Yesterday, one of the judges on the panel told of how the week before it had granted a modification to a plaintiff where the couple had been divorced for over 10 years -- because the change in circumstances had been so acute. Supposedly, even the defendant's attorney only "sheepishly" tried to make a showing of why a modification should not be granted.

Which really puts front and center that question/statement that keeps arising ... marriage may not be for everyone? Or, put more delicately, marriage really IS for ever.