Family Law

A life-changing experience for both parents and children. If you are looking into bringing a child into your family, there is so much joy and excitement surrounded around the process, but due to the legal complexities of adoption, sometimes those feelings can get bogged down. In South Carolina, any resident can adopt, regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation. Why hire an attorney for an adoption? The paperwork. The State will execute a very extensive financial audit, home study, criminal background check, and emotional/ mental evaluation to verify your eligibility to adopt. There are so many ways that your application can slip through the cracks, but with legal guidance, there is a much higher chance of success. Please call our office to discover how we can help your family grow.

Following a divorce, a judge might order payment from one spouse to another; this is referred to as alimony. Judges set the requirement, and the amount that one spouse must pay is based on a multitude of factors including, but not limited to, the duration of the marriage, infidelity or marital misconduct, the anticipated earnings of each spouse, number of dependents, and employment status. If your ex-spouse is not paying alimony required by the court order or if you are interested in adjusting the amount of alimony you pay an ex-spouse, please reach out to us at Henderson & Henderson. Our team of lawyers is ready to help you resolve this personal and financial matter.

In South Carolina, custody is defined as which parent has control over making decisions for their children. Parents can be assigned either sole or joint custody depending on the family situation. If parents are not married, child custody is automatically granted to the mother, however, following a divorce in South Carolina, neither parent has automatic right to custody, and judges keep the children’s best interest in mind. If you are interested in your custody rights or just want to speak with a family law attorney, please contact our office to hear about your options.

SC state holds both unmarried or divorced parents financially responsible for their children. Child support is court-ordered payment that is calculated by spousal income, medical insurance costs, child care costs, and a handful of other factors. Whether you need assistance on retrieving or modifying your child support payments, identifying your child support balance, or any other related matter, please do not hesitate to reach out to us here at Henderson & Henderson, LLC.

If you find yourself in the middle of a nightmare–trapped in an abusive marriage, take a breath and know that there are options, systems, and people to help remove you from this situation. In South Carolina, domestic violence survivors are entitled to certain protective orders to ensure their safety. Furthermore, following the implementation of a protective order, one of our attorneys is able to assist in a fault divorce. We can use discrete communication as we acknowledge you might be in an unstable environment, however, we will walk you through this process beginning to end. Your safety and well-being is paramount to our firm.
In the event where you are in immediate danger of abuse, please call +911.

This should be an anticipated stop in the divorce process. Family mediation involves identifying financial responsibilities, plans for child custody, and ultimately pinpointing why couples decided to get divorced and how their future will look after the paperwork is all said and done. Mediators are typically familiar with local and state laws that govern divorce, however, they should not provide legal advice. This is why you have an attorney represent you during mediation sessions. If you are interested in retaining representation for an upcoming mediation session or need to plan one, please contact our office to learn more about our services.

A legally binding agreement between future spouses that establishes the financial and property rights in the event of a divorce is a prenuptial agreement – should be finalized prior to marriage. While these may appear outdated or stigmatized, they are used quite frequently in second marriages with older couples to keep family assets separate. Prenuptial agreements preserve inheritances and allow for easy financial planning for adult children.

On the contrary, a postnuptial agreement is a legally binding agreement between current spouses that separates financial and property assets in the event of a divorce. Those are created once a couple is already married, but it provides similar coverage as a prenuptial agreement if the couple gets divorced. Postnuptial agreements are used to expedite the divorce process since all the terms of separation are already spelled out. Please call our office if interested in hearing about your options.