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What encompasses domestic law, and how are lawyers and law firms, like Ciyou Dixon, P.C.,  different one from another?

A significant part of Ciyou Dixon’s practice focuses on family law, which is also known as “domestic relations .”  In fact, Ciyou Dixon, P.C. attorneys have handled appellate cases that have changed or clarified Indiana domestic law (Cohoon v. Cohoon, 2003 ). Today, domestic relations law is broader in scope than ever before, including traditional divorce and paternity cases, to a growing array of people who define themselves as a “couple” or in a “family” relationship, along with third parties who are rearing the children of other parents.

Domestic cases include: 1). child support. modification, emancipation. and termination, along with higher education expenses; 2). paternity establishment and challenge, along with the child support issues; 3). child custody determination and modification, both in terms of legal and physical custody ; and 4). the less common including jurisdictional disputes, parental abduction and kidnapping to pre-nuptial agreements and cohabitation cases to CHINS and delinquency cases.

However, domestic attorneys differ greatly in how they “practice” family law and work with and manage clients’ expectations through this legal area, with some firms limiting their practice to representing men or women or handling certain types of family law cases. In our web pages, we hope you learn a bit about our philosophy and family law generally. We practice in all domestic areas. Everyone who reads these pages should obtain some useful background information, which will be helpful to you in your daily life even if you just lend a sympathetic ear to someone going through a contested divorce case, which is usually as emotional as it is legal.

At Ciyou Dixon, specifically, our practice philosophy is to aim to identify the key dynamics that might delay a case from completion or increase expenses and then discuss these with our clients. Our goal is to then determine the approach to use with the opposing party and his or her counsel, to try to resolve the case by agreement, at mediation. or by a streamlined trial. We believe in the long run, this pays dividends to the entire family involved in the divorce action in several ways: The client has less invested emotionally on the unhealthy relationship that is being litigated, which minimizes the long-term ill-will between the parties in the present, and long after the legal battle is over and the lawyers are out of the picture.

Simply put, we believe domestic litigation is the best of times and the worst of times situation, occurring at the same time. By focusing on the immediate case and the client’s future, Ciyou Dixon attorneys highlight how positive the future can be for our clients if they do not let this chapter in their life define them. Ultimately, this is the mostly likely course to work to accomplish their legal objective and maximize the marital estate; and, where there are children, avoid the negative dynamics of litigation from spilling over onto the children involved and impairing their future.

Ciyou Dixon, P.C. handles domestic cases throughout the state, including those with interstate components and on appeal.