Tennessee Recent Legal Answers from Lawyers

You can apply to Legal Aid. If you don't qualify, you can look for a lawyer with flexible payment options, but I don't think a "cheap" option exists, and sometimes you get what you pay for. Your bf should have placement priority w DCS if the state does take her, but there is a whole process for interstate placement. It sounds like you need a lawyer in MS.... Read More

If DCS was involved with the placement, it's my understanding they will sometimes help with the adoption. That might be a place for you to start, especially if money is an issue as it is for almost all of us. If it's a private placement and DCS won't help, you would have to file a petition to terminate parental rights of both parents and for adoption. If birth parents will sign off, and especially if you are a blood relative, it can be fairly simple. If birth parents fight, it can be a pretty involved lawsuit. Sometimes people call termination of parental rights the death penalty of Family Court. Birthparents will probably be appointed lawyers and the child will get one. As you can imagine that's a lot of lawyers in a room, and when there are a lot of lawyers in a room things are slow and expensive. Also depending on your circumstances you could contact legal aid, they are called different things depending on your county but if you Google 'legal aid' you should be able to find them and see if they are in a position to help you. Otherwise hire an attorney in your county or nearby with experience in the contested termination of rights cases... Read More

I'm happy to speak with you, however, having dealt with my own stepfather when my mother passed, you may not like what I tell you about how I surviving spouse has all the power, and surviving adult children have none. Again, I'm happy to speak with you. I obviously don't know all the facts, but the underlying reality that step-mom probably wins can be a harsh one. I'm not defending your current lawyer, like I said, I don't know the facts so how could I, but it may be they are not throwing you under the bus, there may just not be much they can do for you. I've lived this myself, and I do cases like this, and so let's talk. www.walshlawtn.com or  aaronwalsh@walshlaw.biz... Read More

Hello. Your post is not a question and so I cannot answer it. I will tell you that the child support worksheet was updated in March 2020, so you need to Google "Tennessee 2020 child support worksheet," and you need to carefully fill that in, and that will yield the proper child support number. If there are numbers you need to fill into that sheet that you don't know the correct number, you will need to find a way to get the correct number. Sometimes that means filing a case and sending subpoenas, sometimes it's easier.... Read More

Under the circumstances you described, I think she would have some difficulty terminating your parental rights and adopting your child. Now, I'm not trying to be funny when I say she probably describes the situation differently. If I read her description, maybe I would say an adoption is possible. The grounds that people usually use in a case like yours would be that the child was placed into DCS custody, which then I guess went to your mother-in-law, and that you have failed to remedy the conditions that lead to the child's removal from your test today. Your post says you have remedied those conditions, so that would be the big disagreement. You said you are working on getting to the place DSS said you needed to be. If it's been a few months that's OK, if it's been a couple years and you are still "working on it," you are getting closer to the kind of situation where a court could terminate your rights.... Read More

Many people use one attorney. Technically that attorney can represent only one of you, but both parties don't have to hire a lawyer. You could hire someone and Husband could represent himself. There are also lawyers who do "collaborative divorce," which means one lawyer can do it but with some specific rules. That collaborative divorce model is new, and I don't think a lot of lawyers use it. The problem is that if you and your husband start to disagree, the collaborative lawyer has to drop out entirely. If you hire a lawyer and he doesn't, and there are some disagreements, your lawyer just keeps representing you and husband can hire one if he needs one. If you are just 100% sure, no question, that there will be no disagreement you could Google and see who is doing collaborative law. I don't, specifically, but I have been The only attorney on probably hundreds of divorce cases at this point.... Read More

If your notification follows the requirements of 36-6-108 of the Tennessee Code of Laws and father does not object, you should be able to relocate. If your notice was not legally sufficient, it's possible you'll have to file a Petition with the Court. Under the circumstances you described, I think you would be allowed to relocate.... Read More

You're going to have to see what comes back on the background check before anyone can tell you what to do. If you really had two charges that were simply dismissed, that should not prevent you from owning a weapon or ammunition. Once you see what shows on the record you can look at how to remove it. If you end up having a domestic violence conviction, you're not going be able to expunge that and you will be barred from owning guns or ammunition for a lifetime.... Read More

It is not clear what you mean by "legalized" but it appears that there may be two approaches.  The simplest would be to send the parents the Tennessee version of a Temporary Power of Attorney for Our Child and ask them to sign it before a notary at the American consultate and mail it back to you.  This gives you authority to take your niece to the doctor, enroll her in school, etc.  Another method would be to send the paper back to the parents and ask them to have it notarized and then presented to a court for an "apostille" in their home country.  Please also note that in many states the DMV or DPS will issue an ID to a visiting student without either of these.... Read More

If you're a US citizen then you can sponsor him for a fiancé visa which allows him to enter the US for 90 days. Once you get married in that time frame he can adjust status to get his green card. One condition to qualifying for the visa is that you must have physically met him within two years of filing the fiancé case. ... Read More