About the Author

Diana Shepherd, CDFA®

Diana Shepherd has over 30 years of experience as a marketing, branding, SEO, copywriting, editing, and publishing expert. As Content Director for Family Lawyer Magazine, Divorce Magazine, and Divorce Marketing Group, she oversees all corporate content development and frequently creates SEO-friendly videos, podcasts, and copy for family law and financial firms. The Co-Founder of Divorce Magazine and Divorce Marketing Group, Diana is an award-winning editor, published author, and a nationally recognized expert on divorce, remarriage, finance, and stepfamily issues. She has written hundreds of articles geared towards both family law professionals and divorcing people, and she has both performed and taught on-page SEO for 20+ years. Diana spent eight years as the Marketing Director for the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts® (IDFA®), and she has been a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® since 2006. While at IDFA, she wrote, designed, and published The IDFA Marketing Guide, and she also created seminars for CDFA professionals to present to family lawyers (approved for CLE), as well as to separated and divorcing individuals. She has represented both DMG and IDFA at industry conferences and events across North America, and she has given marketing as well as divorce financial seminars at many of those conferences.

3 Comments

  1. 1
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    John Waldorf

    Governor Christie Veto bill A845 as this bill is not an Alimony Reform bill at best it simply deletes all reference to “Permanent Alimony” with “Open Durational Alimony” the open period being determined by the Family Court Judges.
    Citizen Alimony Reformers of New Jersey the Bill A 845 which was passed by the State Legislature and is heading Governor Christie’s falls way short of expectations to the point that I would not even call it a “Alimony Reform Bill”. The bill is a poor attempt at legislation which was meant to make the Alimony/Family Court more predictable. There are no alimony guidelines in the bill and as far as duration paid it is year for year of marriage. This was deemed to be a predictable concession. So if you were married for 15 years you will pay alimony for 15 years or if you were married for 5 years you pay for five years. One of the salient points is that this bill will more than likely increase the Attorney fees divorcing couples rather than the opposite, by not having Alimony Guidelines for the determination of alimony.

    The bill attempts to factor in a prescribed age for retirement per Social Security definition, but it is still up to the Judge’s discretion. Permanent alimony is now called “open durational Alimony”. Just semantics here people purely semantics. The primary sponsors of the bill; Assemblyman Charles Mainor, Assemblyman Sean Kean, Assemblywomen Pamala Lampit, Assemblyman Troy Singleton, Senator Nicholas Scutari and Senator Sandra Cunningham all will get a notch on their gun for the worst legislation ever passed. Every word in the bill is ambiguous.

    The bill is silent on the use of second spouse’s income on the recalculation of alimony support. What this means is that if the payer remarries that the payee can petition the court to increase their alimony because of the additional income of the second spouse constitutes a “changer circumstances”

    The bill did address murderers in that they may not receive alimony (what maybe 1 case of this in state of New Jersey). The bill did not address the issue of a payer spouse working beyond their retirement age, in fact if the Judge deems that the person receiving alimony needs more retirement income you may not retire and must continue to work and pay for their retirement.
    The NJAR and NJWAR organization leaders, I call them “hangers on” where completely ineffective in putting forth an alimony reform bill and completely and utterly capitulated to the NJ Bar Association. The “hangers on” were a complete and utter failure. The “Blue Ribbon commission” bill would have been a better solution.

    Governor Christie veto this bill, this is not an alimony reform bill and will do nothing to help the citizens of New Jersey through the divorce process. If this bill is passed into law it will be another generation until the legislature addresses this issue again. Please Governor Christie to not sentence the citizens of New Jersey to an utter and permanent alimony financial sentence.

  2. 2
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    Kelly

    The only thing this bill is revitalizing is endless litigation, and the lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank! This bill needs to be vetoed! Members of the NJ bar should not be included in writing an alimony reform bill !

  3. 3
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    ReformActivist

    I support the Conditional Veto, or Veto, of A845/S488. I also support the idea of holding a Public Hearing on Bill A845/S488.

    In the newest version of A845/S488 (June 26, 2014) Open Durational Alimony replaces the phrase Permanent. These words mean the same thing, how is that an improvement? Does the language in the bill describing the retiree who pays alimony, support the Federal Retirement Laws and allow for that person to retire? No, because the language in the new version reads “May” retire instead of “Shall” retire, and creates a myriad of legal hurdles for one to jump through, just to be able to exercise their Federal Right.

    There are a whole host of alimony issues not being addressed in this bill: incarcerating alimony payers because of their inability to pay; forcing the higher earning divorcee to purchase a life insurance policy for the benefit of the ex-spouse; former spouses going after a new spouse’s income and assets in an effort to obtain more $$$; unregulated legal fees; etc.

    No studies were conducted and data was not used to support the current version of A845/S488. Neither a survey tool nor a vote was taken to get the opinions of alimony reform advocates in New Jersey prior to the drafting of this newest version. The People were not given the current version of A845/S488 (dated June 26, 2014) before the June 30, 2014 Senate vote. Let’s have a Public Hearing on A845/S488. Let The People be heard!

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