Archive: Client Update

With a new year comes updated exemptions for estate tax exclusion and gift tax for 2023. What is the “estate tax exemption” and where is it going in 2023? The estate tax exemption is the amount of non-charitable bequests that can pass tax-free to someone other than your spouse upon your death. For 2023, the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forward a new litany of contested issues in custody cases.  Access schedules with both parents working from home, distance learning accommodations, and vacationing to COVID-19 hotspots are but a few of them. With the CDC’s approval of vaccination for children ages 5-12 comes a new issue.  Many parents who share...

While the media excitedly predicted a spike in divorce rates due to the pandemic, the impact of the pandemic on the BDBF family law practice has been much more nuanced. For example, clients who are already divorced re-evaluated alimony and child support obligations due to the loss of one or both parents’ incomes. Custody time-sharing...

As of March 15, 2021, Maryland courts are once again open to the public with restrictions in place to enforce social distancing and other CDC guidelines. Courts are holding live non-jury trials and contested hearings in civil and family matters. Of course, certain matters will still be heard via Zoom.   Maryland Across the State...

The battle over 128 overnights has ended! Many divorcing parents in Maryland fought to obtain 128 overnights of access to a child per year. Having 128 overnights meant that a parent was deemed to have “shared custody” for child support calculations. Less than 128 overnights meant that the other parent was deemed to have “sole custody”...

Unfortunately, it is not unusual for BDBF attorneys to work with injured clients who cannot obtain a full and fair recovery against an at-fault driver. Often this is because the driver who hit them had no insurance or was underinsured. It adds insult to (often literal) injury to an innocent driver who is badly hurt...

Many families have adjusted their lives during the COVID-19 crisis to accommodate the demands of virtual learning for children and parents working from home.  We hear from our clients that parents are dividing their custodial time differently to accommodate the unique demands of life during the pandemic. For many of our family law clients, these...