The term “parental rights” can be confusing. Many parents assume that their parental rights are automatically granted to them when they have a child. While this is somewhat true, it is important to understand how and when parents’ legal rights are granted or revoked under Illinois law.

How Do Parents Gain Parental Rights?

Mothers are considered the legal parent of a child when they give birth. Fathers can gain parental rights by establishing paternity. Paternity is assumed for married parents, meaning the husband of a woman who gives birth to a new baby is automatically considered the child’s legal parent. Signing a document called a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity (VAP) is the most popular method of establishing paternity when unmarried parents both agree on who the child’s father is.

Parents can also establish paternity through an administrative process with the Department of Child and Family Services or a judicial process with the court.

Sexual harassment victims have the right to take legal action against an employer who failed to prevent or address sexual harassment. If you have been subjected to sexual harassment at work, you have the burden of proof to show that the facts that you are alleging in a sexual harassment case are true. Courts will pay close attention to the evidence that backs your claim. You can help your case when you have documentation that helps prove your allegations against the employer. Here are three ways that you can document a sexual harassment claim.

Keep a Journal While the Conduct Is Happening

You may be pressed on your memory of what happened if you need to sit for a deposition or testify at a trial in the future. You can help your case when you write down the conduct as soon as possible after it happens. Contemporaneous evidence could be considered more credible. Your journal entries should include things like the following:

• The dates and times of the incidents
• Where the incidents occurred
• Who was involved
• What was said or done
• Any potential witnesses to the conduct
• What you did as a result

You should make a journal entry whenever there is a new incident. 

 Divorce can stir up a wide range of emotions, including anger, resentment, and betrayal. Some divorcing spouses take out their anger on the other spouse by intentionally wasting or destroying marital property in an act of revenge. For example, a spouse infuriated at the thought of divorce may throw the other spouse’s personal property in the trash, drain the joint checking account at the casino, or spend thousands of dollars on luxury items.

If you are getting divorced and your spouse has wasted marital assets or funds, It is important to be aware of your legal options. In this blog, we will discuss the types of wasteful spending that constitute dissipation of assets and how a dissipation of assets claim can help you recoup the value of wasted, destroyed, or lost assets.

What is a Dissipation of Assets Claim?

A dissipation of assets claim addresses reckless spending or intentional destruction of marital property during the divorce process. If a spouse is found to have dissipated assets, the court will consider this dissipation when dividing marital property. The spouse who dissipated assets may receive a proportionately lesser share of the marital estate, while the spouse who did not dissipate receives a greater share of the remaining marital estate.

By now, most people know that sexual harassment or discrimination against an employee on the basis of sex or gender is unlawful. However, less is known about the laws regarding retaliation.

An employer is prohibited from retaliating against an individual who makes a sexual harassment complaint. For example, if an employee files a sexual harassment complaint with human resources and then finds that his or her work hours have been drastically cut, the employee may be able to sue for retaliation. The employee may be entitled to monetary damages or other legal remedies.

However, the law does not stop there. Individuals are also protected against retaliation for participating in a sexual harassment investigation. For example, consider an employee who witnesses a supervisor touching a colleague inappropriately and later testifies about what he saw during a sexual harassment investigation. This employee is also protected against retaliation.

 Divorce officially and permanently ends a marriage. However, divorcing spouses may still be involved in each other 's lives, and there may be times when they need to return to court to modify part of their divorce decree. For example, parents who experience life changes such as remarriage, relocation, or a new job may need to modify the allocation of parental responsibilities or parenting time. Similarly, a significant change in financial circumstances may warrant modifying the child support or spousal support order.

Under the right circumstances, these types of issues may be modified after the divorce is finalized. However, modifying the distribution of marital property after the divorce is finalized is a much different issue. In this blog, we will discuss the limited circumstances in which property division may be modified after a divorce.

Changing Property Division After a Divorce

Divorcing spouses must undo the financial entanglement that occurs during marriage. Property accumulated during the marriage is typically considered marital property to which both spouses have an ownership stake. Marital property may include real estate, furniture, jewelry and other valuables, retirement funds, investment income, and more. Spouses may be able to negotiate a property division settlement, or the court may determine an equitable distribution of property based on Illinois law.