Divorce Services

Divorce Law | Milwaukee, WIAs a high net worth individual going through a divorce, you deserve an attorney with the knowledge, experience, and tenacity to protect your family, your assets, and your future. Attorney Odalo Ohiku and the team at the Ohiku Law Office put your needs front and center. We begin each client engagement by seeking to understand your desired outcome.  Then we marshal our considerable resources to ensuring that we protect what matters most to you!

If divorce is in your future, you need an advocate with the compassion to empathize with what you are going through and the knowledge to navigate you through the complexities of divorce. At the Ohiku Law Office, we seek first to work as peaceful problem solvers and negotiators, to mitigate the stress and contention that can be a part of divorce, while tirelessly working to negotiate a settlement that you will feel good about.

Selecting the right divorce attorney is one of the most important decision you will have to make.  You want an attorney with the experience and know how to reduce the stress and acrimony of divorce, all while securing the best possible outcomes so you can get back to rebuilding and living your life!  Attorney Odalo Ohiku’s decades of experience, impeccable knowledge of divorce and family law and his carefully curated, mutually respectful relationships with the courts, judges and other attorneys have uniquely prepared him to successfully resolve cases in a fashion that helps his clients avoid costly and stressful trials whenever possible.

If you are considering divorce, select an attorney that cares about your well-being as much as the outcomes. At Ohiku Law Office, Milwaukee’s preferred high-net worth divorce attorneys, we are ready to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you need assistance with a family law, child support, custody, placement, or visitation issue, please call us at (414) 287-0088.

FAQs | Divorce

The only basis for divorce in Wisconsin is that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.” This means the husband and wife can find no way to work out their differences. A judge usually will find a marriage irretrievably broken even if only one spouse wants a divorce.

Divorce ends a marriage. Legal separation involves the same procedures as divorce, but the separated spouses can’t marry others. Legal separation is an alternative for people who wish to avoid divorce for religious or other reasons. The court grants a legal separation on the ground that the marriage relationship is broken.

Like a divorce, a legal separation requires property division and determination of child custody and placement. The court may order maintenance and child support payments.

After one year, either spouse can seek to have a legal separation converted into a divorce without the other spouse’s consent. Spouses who reconcile after a legal separation may apply to have the separation revoked.

An annulment dissolves a marriage that was invalid from the beginning. For instance, one spouse may have been too young, unable to have sexual intercourse, incapable of consenting to the marriage, or induced to marry by fraud or force.

You must have been a Wisconsin resident for at least six months before filing for divorce here. Also, you must have lived at least 30 days in the county where you file.

Divorce usually begins with the filing of a petition for divorce and a summons. The petition for divorce gives the factual history of the marriage and states the desired outcome of the divorce. The summons states that a response must be filed within 20 days.

Sometimes the court finds it necessary to issue temporary orders, which are orders laying out the ground rules that each spouse must follow until the final divorce hearing. If temporary orders are necessary, two additional documents must be filed. The affidavit for temporary relief requests temporary arrangements for child custody, placement, or support, as well as any other needed provisions. The order to show cause contains the time and date of the hearing before the family court commissioner, who establishes the temporary orders.

After one spouse files the petition and summons with the clerk of court, these documents are served upon the family court commissioner (in certain counties) and the other spouse. The person asking for a divorce is called the petitioner, and the other spouse is the respondent. Both spouses are parties to the divorce action.

Yes, but you have to show the court that you made reasonable efforts to locate your spouse. You also must publish a notice in a local newspaper in an attempt to inform your spouse that you have started a divorce.

If it is at all possible to find an address, you must attempt to have notice of the divorce action served upon your spouse. The court has no power to order child support or maintenance unless your spouse has been personally served with notice.

Unless the court makes an exception for an emergency, at least four months (120 days) must pass between the serving of the initial papers and the final hearing. Most divorces take longer than four months. Several factors affect the length of the process: the complexity of the case, the ability of the spouses to agree on the issues, and the amount of other business before the trial court.

A divorce isn’t effective until the final hearing. Once the divorce is final, both parties must wait at least six months before marrying other people.

Yes. Every divorce includes an order that neither spouse can harass, intimidate, physically abuse, or impose restraints on the personal liberty of the other spouse or minor children (under age 18) of either spouse. In addition, neither spouse can encumber, conceal, destroy, damage, transfer, or otherwise dispose of property owned by either or both of the spouses, without the other spouse’s consent or a prior order of the court or family court commissioner. There are exceptions for actions taken in the usual course of business, in order to buy necessities, or to pay reasonable divorce expenses, including attorney fees.

Parents who have minor children together have additional responsibilities. Neither parent can move minor children outside Wisconsin or more than 150 miles from the other parent within the state. Neither parent can remove minor children from Wisconsin for more than 90 consecutive days without the other parent’s consent or an order of the court or family court commissioner. Also, neither parent can conceal minor children from the other parent.

These restraining orders apply until dismissal of the divorce action or until the final judgment, unless the court orders otherwise. The court may punish a spouse who violates restraining orders.

In addition, the judge or family court commissioner may issue other temporary orders that protect your rights during the divorce process. For example, temporary orders may determine child custody and physical placement, who lives in the family home, payment of maintenance and child support, and payment of debts.

A person disobeying a temporary order can be fined, jailed, or both. Some law enforcement agencies, though, are reluctant to arrest a spouse for violating a divorce temporary restraining order. In cases involving violence, one spouse may seek to restrain the other by filing a domestic abuse injunction. Law enforcement agencies generally are more willing to act immediately on violations of an abuse injunction.

The term custody refers to the right to make legal decisions regarding a child, such as school choice, religious training, medical care, and so on. The court must presume that joint legal custody is in the child’s best interests – that is, both parents have decision-making authority, unless there is evidence of interspousal battery or domestic abuse.

The term physical placement refers to how much time a child spends with each parent. You often hear of “visitation,” but physical placement is now the correct legal term.

Many couples manage to work out their own agreement on child custody and physical placement. This is the best solution for all concerned. The two of you will no longer be spouses after divorce, but you still are parents of your children. By agreeing on custody and placement, you will be better able to communicate with each other for years to come. And your children are less likely to be caught in the middle of parental disputes, one of the worst after-effects of divorce.

When couples have trouble agreeing on custody or placement, the judge or family court commissioner refers them to family court counseling. If the spouses still fail to work out their differences, the judge decides on custody and placement based on the child’s best interests.

To make this decision, the judge weighs several factors. The court may also appoint a guardian ad litem, an attorney who represents the child’s interests.

If a parent has physical placement with the child less than 25 percent of the time, the court usually bases child support on a percentage of that parent’s gross (pre-tax) income. The standard support percentages are: 17 percent for one child, 25 percent for two children, 29 percent for three children, 31 percent for four children, and 34 percent for five or more children. However, these percentages may be reduced for higher income levels. In addition, the court may adjust the standard support percentages upward or downward, if it determines that applying the standard percentages would be unfair in a particular case.

If each parent has at least 25 percent physical placement with the child, which is known as shared placement, each parent’s gross income is considered in setting child support. Though the standard support percentages discussed above are part of the equation, the calculation is much more complex because it also considers the amount of physical placement each parent has with the child. In addition to the child support amount set by this calculation, shared placement parents also are responsible for the child’s variable costs (such as child care, tuition, and special needs) typically in proportion to the time that the parent has physical placement with the child.

Sometimes one or both parents are paying child support already due to a previous divorce or paternity judgment. Under those circumstances, the court may reduce that parent’s gross income available for child support in this new case before applying the standard support percentages and calculations discussed above.

If the court believes that either parent is shirking his or her obligation, the court may use the shirking parent’s earning capacity, instead of actual earnings, as the income from which to set child support.

Even if the parent who receives child support fails to follow the physical placement schedule, the parent paying child support may not legally reduce or stop payments, unless that modification is specifically approved and ordered by the court. Doing so only hurts the child.

Maintenance, formerly called alimony, is money one spouse pays to the other during or after a divorce.

Maintenance and child support are treated differently for tax purposes. A parent paying child support can’t deduct it on his or her income tax return. And the parent receiving child support doesn’t report it as income. By contrast, the person paying maintenance can deduct it on taxes, and the person receiving maintenance must report it as income.

A husband and wife may agree on whether maintenance is appropriate and, if so, what the maintenance amount and duration will be. If they don’t agree, the judge decides these issues. The judge will consider:

  • the length of the marriage;
  • each spouse’s age and physical and emotional health;
  • how property was divided;
  • each spouse’s educational level;
  • each spouse’s earning capacity;
  • the likelihood that the spouse seeking maintenance can become self-supporting at a standard of living reasonably comparable to that enjoyed during the marriage, and how long it would take to achieve this goal;
  • tax consequences;
  • any agreement of the spouses;
  • one spouse’s contribution to the education, training, or increased earning power of the other; and
  • any other factor the court finds relevant.

A wage assignment is an order to an employer to deduct child support or maintenance payments from an employee’s pay.

When the court orders a person in a divorce to pay support or maintenance, the order includes a wage assignment order for his or her employer. But if a wage assignment order would cause the payer irreparable harm, the court may allow the person to pay directly to the State Child Support Collection Fund, which forwards the money to the other spouse.

Most of a couple’s property, including assets such as retirement interests, can be divided in a divorce. One exception is property received either as a gift from a third party or as an inheritance, although even gifts and inheritances may be divided in some circumstances.

If the couple can’t agree on how to divide property, the court decides. The court starts with the presumption that equal division is fair and proper. But the court may alter this by considering:

  • the length of the marriage;
  • the property owned by either spouse when they married;
  • whether one spouse has substantial assets the court can’t divide;
  • each spouse’s contribution to the marriage;
  • each spouse’s age and physical and emotional health;
  • one spouse’s contribution to the increased earning power of the other;
  • each spouse’s earning capacity;
  • the desirability of awarding the family home, or the right to live there, to the parent with primary placement of minor children;
  • tax consequences;
  • agreements of the spouses; and
  • any other factor the court finds relevant.

A default divorce is one in which you and your spouse have no contested issues for the court to decide. A default hearing usually occurs soon after you file a final marital settlement agreement. This spells out all your arrangements for support, maintenance, and asset and liability distribution.

The default hearing cannot occur until after the 120-day waiting period expires, unless there is an emergency. At the hearing, upon approval of your agreement, the court will grant an absolute judgment of divorce.

Don’t confuse “default divorce” with “no-fault divorce.” A no-fault divorce means that the petitioner need not prove wrongdoing on the part of the other spouse in order to file for divorce. Wisconsin is a no-fault state. The only legal basis for divorce in this state is that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.”

If you can’t reach a final agreement, your case goes to trial. The trial date depends on the length of time needed for the hearing and the court’s other business. Contested divorce trials are costly and involved. The court enforces rules of evidence, which contain many pitfalls for the unwary. The best way to avoid these is to hire an attorney.

Ethical rules prohibit an attorney from representing both spouses in a divorce.

Occasionally an attorney represents one spouse, and the other spouse chooses to represent himself or herself. Divorces in which neither spouse uses an attorney also occur, particularly when the couple has no children and/or little or no property.

Exercise caution if you go through a divorce without a lawyer. Divorce is a lawsuit, often having hidden consequences. If you have little or no income to pay for an attorney, you may qualify for free help from a legal services agency.

FAQs | Martial Property Act

The law recognizes that both spouses contribute to supporting a marriage – even if only one earns a salary, or if both draw an income but one earns more than the other. The law says that, with limited exceptions, whatever the couple acquires during their marriage should belong to them equally. This translates into certain advantages. For example, a nonemployed spouse has easier access to credit, and each spouse can make individual decisions about bequeathing assets.

Marital property includes all income and possessions a couple acquires after their “determination date” (with certain exceptions). The determination date is the latest of: the couple’s marriage day; the date when they both took up residence in Wisconsin; or Jan. 1, 1986.

Two concepts bear special mention:

  • Survivorship marital property – This passes directly to the surviving spouse upon the other’s death. It does not pass under a will. An example would be a house that has both spouses’ names (and only their names) on the title.
  • Deferred marital property – This is a tricky concept; a brief explanation must suffice here. This term applies to property that would have been classified as marital property except that it was acquired before the couple’s determination date. Say a couple moved to Wisconsin in 1995. All the property they brought with them did not automatically become marital property just because they moved to Wisconsin. But if one spouse dies, the survivor may have rights to a certain amount of money, based on the value of what would have beenmarital property if the Marital Property Act had been in effect during the entire marriage. The upshot is that the surviving spouse in this situation has some economic protection, even if not the beneficiary of the other’s estate.

Yes, you can have individual property. Usually this is property you owned before marriage. A personal gift or inheritance, no matter when received, also is individual property. For an item to be individual property, however, you must have records that prove it belongs solely to you. Otherwise the law presumes that all property owned by spouses is marital property, belonging to both of you equally.

Simply having only your name on the title to an item does not make it individual property. The spouse named on the title does, however, have the right to manage and control that property. The law requires the titled spouse to treat the nontitled spouse fairly if the item is marital property.

Yes. During a marriage, individual and marital property can get jumbled together. The law presumes this mixed property to be entirely marital property, unless records prove that some portion is individual property.

For instance, say you had a savings account before you were married. Over the years, you deposit portions of your paychecks, which are marital property, and the account continues to earn interest. You often withdraw money to pay family expenses. That account has become mixed property and at least partially marital property. It becomes extremely complicated to trace a portion of that account as individual property because multiple deposits, interest earnings, and withdrawals have moved in and out of that account during the marriage.

Another example: You’ve owned a summer cabin since before you were married. After marriage, your spouse builds an addition to the cabin, without receiving compensation for his or her labor. That extra room boosts the cabin’s value. The amount of increased value is marital property, even though the cabin’s original value could remain individual property, if documentation so proves.

On the other hand, suppose you owned 100 shares of stock before you were married. You buy no more shares during your marriage, and the stock grows in value due to market changes. That stock, along with its increased value, remains individual property.

It bears repeating: If you wish to maintain an item as individual property, you must have records to trace the ownership.

The law makes it easier for a nonincome-earning spouse to get credit. When deciding one spouse’s creditworthiness, the creditor must consider the value of all marital property, including the other spouse’s income.

But the Marital Property Act also presents some risks. Debts you incur during marriage are presumed to be in the interest of your marriage. To collect on such a debt, a creditor can go after not only the debtor’s individual property, but also all marital property. For example, if one spouse borrows money and then becomes unemployed and can’t pay the debt, the creditor can garnish the other spouse’s paycheck.

If you and your spouse are prone to disagree on credit matters, consider entering into a marital property agreement. This could limit each spouse’s liabilities for the other’s debts. But you must give a creditor a copy of such an agreement before obtaining credit.

Upon death, your estate will consist of your individual property plus half of all marital property. You may leave your estate to whomever you choose. A word of caution, however. Suppose you leave everything to a charity. The charity would receive your individual property, plus half your marital property. The latter could include half of property still half-owned and used by your surviving spouse, such as the family car. Your surviving spouse would end up co-owning the car with a charity, which may not be what you had in mind. Be sure your bequests are exactly what you intend.

In this case, your entire estate goes to your surviving spouse, unless you have children from outside your marriage. Then your spouse gets half the marital property and half of your individual property. The rest of your estate goes to your children, both from this marriage and from outside it.

People often pay into life insurance and deferred retirement plans before and during a marriage. Thus, special formulas exist to calculate which portions are marital or individual property.

You should name beneficiaries for life insurance and deferred retirement benefits. Then these assets can pass directly to your beneficiaries, rather than by a will. For life insurance, if you name someone besides your spouse as beneficiary, your spouse still may have a marital property claim to part of the death benefit. Keep this in mind if you wish to name children from another marriage as life insurance beneficiaries.

A spouse has a marital property interest in the other spouse’s deferred retirement benefits – but only while alive. In other words, the spouse who dies first can’t will away half of the survivor’s retirement benefits.

One spouse may give away marital property to a third party, if that spouse’s name is on the title. If both spouses agree to the gift, it can be of any value. But if one spouse disputes the gift, and its value is more than $1,000 (or a larger “reasonable” amount based on the couple’s economic situation), that spouse can go to court to void the gift.

If you have disagreements you can’t settle, you could go to court to seek legal remedies. Among others, these include:

  • recovering property the other spouse gave away to a third party, if that gift exceeded the limit described above
  • having your name added to a property’s title, so you and your spouse have joint management and control rights over that property
  • removing a spouse’s name from a title, to limit his or her management and control rights
  • asking for an accounting of your financial situation

The Marital Property Act applies during marriage and upon a spouse’s death. Wisconsin has other laws that cover the division of property upon divorce.

You and your spouse may want such an agreement if you disagree on credit matters. A marital property agreement can serve other purposes, as well. Perhaps you both wish to avoid the marital property system. You’d rather keep some or all of your property separate, as individual property. Or, you may wish to have some or all of your individual property reclassified as marital property.

A marital property agreement allows you to either opt into or out of the marital property law. Deciding if either is a smart move for you depends on such factors as your tax situation and estate planning needs. An attorney can help you sort out the best options and also draft the agreement. Or you may be able to use the statutory form agreements. Either way, the agreement must be in writing, and both spouses must sign it voluntarily.

If you seek legal help to draft the agreement, you may be able to hire one attorney on both spouses’ behalf. But if the agreement would seriously affect one spouse’s property rights, it may be best for each of you to have your own lawyer.