Table of Contents

The Professor Nedley Series

• Accounting -  This Chapter is an attempt to outline in a page the basic concepts of debit and credit accounting, as well as to name the basic books and journals used in the process of keeping track of a company and its finances.   It is also a cautionary note about the areas where mischief may occur.      

• Age Preference - As divorcing couples age what are the rules about getting them through the court system. One judges experience. It ain't automatic.

• Alimony Loading  -  This discusses the ongoing attempts by tax professionals to make alimony taxable and the IRS's battle to stop them.  The method is to "front-load" the payments to the spouse and call them alimony and make them taxable.  The opposition wants to make the front loaded payments, non-taxable.  These are the rules on one battlefront.

• Books and Law - This is where you'll find views on new stuff that you probably won't research on your own.  New tax law, out-of-the-way legal issues and obscure points of view.  These are the things that might bail you out in a tough situation if you just knew where to find them.

• Buzzwords - This is the widely used "Lingo Buster" - A compendium of the language used in the courtroom with direct citations to the legal authority.  The Professor does his best to keep up-to-date, but corrections and additions are always welcomed.  This is a collective work and it will be around for many years in some form or another. Enjoy!

• Choices - Should the court spend 100's of hours making decisions that people should make themselves - An Opinion.  There is a case pending in the San Diego Division of the Fourth District exactly on this point.  It is hoped that either way it goes that the DCA will give all of us some guidance on how to handle the never ending court fights over family decisions.  The Professor says pick one parent early on.

• Deadbeats - A little known code section allowing direct payments from a payor's account or possibly a third parties account?? This is a method for going over the head of the self-employed, but non-cooperative parent.

• Discipline for Lawyers and Judges - This is short section on the behaviors that get both judges and lawyers in trouble and a few hints on what can be done to avoid some of the problems.  PN lists the top ten elements that make up the "Ten Deadly Sins" for lawyers and the top categories of discipline for judges.

• Dissomaster - A self training program for Dissomaster for those dedicated enough to want to learn.  This program sets out in one hypothetical almost every possible scenario that you'll run into in the courtroom.  It's laid out so that you can go back to it when you run into the very same problem.

• Disso Check - Little tips and tactics for the use of Dissomaster.  These are simply little tidbits to make your life with Dissomaster a bit simpler.

• Disso-Opoly:  The latest Board game craze from Professor Nedley.  Once you start to play, you can't stop.  The money's all real and you lose all of it.  There are no trains or hotels in your future and you may darn well get to "go to Jail" and there are no "get out of Jail free" cards.  But roll the dice and see how long it takes you to get to the end.

• Domestic Tax Law  - A tax opinion on the taxation of Domestic Partners or non-married couples.  The Feds won't bend.  California follows the Fed, but says that Domestic Partners are to be treated in all respect like married persons. What do you do?  How do you compute Child Support or Spousal Support or Domestic Partner Support?

• Domestic Violence - A work in progress intended to offer some symptoms and warning signs and give some guidance on where to go.  This is a judges toughest area.  They have no lie detectors and the stories are often opposite.  Your comments for corrections and additions are welcome.

• The Duuuhh! Page - This page is reserved for those incomprehensible pieces of information that pop-up in public life where you just have to throw up your hands and say "Duuuhh!"

• Election Year - The 2008 Ballot Propositions - There are just a few propositions on the ballot this Winter and they all look like "NO-Brainers" - But that's not the way the Professor sees it.  Either the Professor is going to save you the time of reading through all of the paper or you're going to think he's stark, raving mad.  Either way - Here they are.

• Facts & Opinions - This is an assortment of facts an d opinions that may or may not be of interest to your regarding taxes, law public affairs what have you.

• Food Reviews - A close up and personal batch of restaurant reviews for the beach area.  Why would you go elsewhere.  Sun, Sand and No Alcohol on the Beach.  Each restaurant has been personally attended by one or more of our "Unknown Eating Judges" like Kron, Nedley and the newly retired Brainard.

• Grandparents - Watch the law. Grandparents rights are shrinking, but judges are sympathetic if the kid's best interests are being protected.  There are no clear cut answers, but the very smartest thing that Grandparents can do is to treat their non-child parent with respect and don't get in the middle of the fight.  Be Useful and you'll be needed!!! Be angry and you'll be gone.

• Hardships - A misunderstood area of child support calculation.  Lawyers should read it before asking for it and judges should read it before ruling;  Hardships actually require things such as proof and evidence.  They are not there just for the asking.

• Hearings - The OSC and the Noticed Motions are laid out as simply as a judge can make it.  When to use them. What's the difference?  How to conduct yourself as either an attorney or a litigant.  What to do before during and after the proceeding.  How to impress the judge and win the day.

• I.R.S. Form W-5 - Every courtroom should advise low income parents about this benefit and every judge should understand it.  The W-5 Form should be available in every courtroom as a service to the public.  The website has a link.  Essentially W-5 provides reverse withholding taxes that can be paid to the low earner rather than taken  out of her check.

• Military I - Allowances: The military provides a wide variety of allowances to enable the service member to meet their day to day obligations of living.  These include allowances for clothing, housing, dependents and cost of living adjustments that must be made.  In the civilian world these are all items that are met with the civilians net pay check.  To put things on an even keel, the courts consider allowance as an overall part of the Member's compensation when calculating child and spousal support.  Allowances are non-taxable.

• Military II - Taxable Pay:  There is a basic pay check for all servicemembers for rank and longevity.  That is "Base Pay".  Then in addition to that there are approximately 70 other types of pay that taken together with allowances and the accumulation of retirement benefits, constitute the military's compensation system as a whole.  Anything called "pay" is taxable.  These compensation items do not consider other benefits conferred on military families such as commissaries. health care, golf courses and a variety of other programs that make the military life more palatable.  How these are dealt with in a dissolution remains for another day.

• Military III - Retirement:  Possibly the most far reaching benefit and therefore the most litigated benefit earned during the marriage.  Public policy with good reason believes not only that in a community property state that retirement is a jointly earned benefit, but that the military demands so much of all parts of a family that without doubt the non-military spouse has done real work to earn his or her share of that benefit.  Few jobs make the demands on the entire family that military life demands of its people.

• Military Pay III 1/2 -  Elective Disability Pay:  Delves into the mysteries of what to do with the post judgment election of the military member to take disability payments in lieu of earned retirement.

• Moveaways - Some ideas for high or low tech methods of staying in communication.  There's no reason in this day and age that parents can't stay in daily or weekly touch with their kids.  This may be the biggest aid to the hopeless moveaway cases that we've experienced in the last 20 years.

• Notice Summary - A quick cheat sheet for the time limits on giving notice for various hearings.  This summarizes without detailed explanation what the statutory time limits are on routine motions.

• Noticed Motion - Time requirements in standard motions where no special orders are sought pending the hearing.  The rules are somewhat more relaxed, but if you don't follow them you too may have to go back to "Square One".

• No Service - What happens if the papers aren't served in time or they don't get served at all.  There are some options, but they are limited and it's very frustrating for all concerned.

• Premarital Contracts- A primer on the effect of premarital agreements on the division and ownership of marital property.

• QDRO's - A simple guide to defining what a QDRO is and what it is not.  Tips on preparation.  Remember that, with one exception, the term QDRO applies to private plans only - NOT government retirement benefits.  A QDRO is a simple judgment dividing retirement benefits between two people in a dissolution.

• Relief Motion - How to do a Motion to be Relieved.  It is the simplest of motions.  Both sides usually want it.  Don't screw it up because of procedural mistakes.

• Restraining Order Motions - This outlines the somewhat more precise time requirements where temporary orders are requested pending the hearing.  These are important because if they're missed you go back to "Go" and start over without collecting the $200.

• Stock Options - A primer on stock options from the judge who decided IRMO Kerr back in 1999.  This was the first case in the nation that permitted unexercised stock options to be considered for the purposes of calculating income for child support or spousal support.

• SOD Checklist - A safety list for doing Statements of Decision.  This is an attempt to put into simple language a process to accomplish finalizing a judgment that might or might not be appealed.  An otherwise straightforward case can turn into a expensive chocolate mess AFTER the whole darn case is over with.  That's hard for the person paying the bill to understand.

• Statements of Decision - A summary of one of our most difficult areas of judicial endeavor - how to get the SOD done without undue delay while getting ready for your next calendar and not having enough law clerks to go around..

• Social Security - A basic review of the taxation of Social Security.  This is one of those fun areas where the government takes part of your paycheck by way of taxation, then they give it back to you after you wait a bunch of years and then tax it again - BUT - they only tax it at an 85% rate so it won't seem so bad.

• Tax Forms of Value - If you want forms with which to do your taxes - buy Turbo Tax, but if you want  a quick link to some of the more useful forms that are related to a divorce, then take a look at the FORMS page.  Shifting of tax, getting copies of your tax return, the IRS Pub on Dissolutions.  Start Here!

• Tax Tips 2007 - This is what it says - current tax stuff - at least as current as the Professor can make it.  The Professor tries to put in simple language current changes in the tax law so that you won't miss out on a thing.  Remember when Congress calls something the "Tax Simplification Act" they're just kidding.

• Tax Page - The "Tax Page" is the page where the Professor will put up the most current tax information that strikes him as being of importance to either the divorcing couples, domestic partners or lawyers themselves.  The Professor subscribes to the Kiplinger Tax Letter which keeps up with new and proposed legislation and which provides clear, concise year-round tax-saving help for non-experts as well as tax professionals.     

• Transmutation - What is "transmutation" and where does it fit into our division of property problems.  Can a person accidentally do it while sleeping or at the very least while they're in bed?  Hmmmm?