Family Attorneys Near Me

The world often feels fragile in the depths of a family crisis. Even times of happiness and new beginnings bring unknown elements into a family’s realm that may leave you guessing what is ahead. Family law covers more than divorce, and the Indigo Family Law team is more than divorce attorneys.

Our Georgetown, SC, family attorneys near me law firm provides trusted legal guidance in complex family circumstances because we believe that family is what matters most. At Indigo Family Law, we offer an honest, straightforward approach to your family’s challenges. Through joyous occasions and times of uncertainty, Indigo Family Law puts your family’s needs first.

Why Choose Our Local Family Law Attorneys Near You

Our family lawyers recognize that every family needs a legal plan providing direction for combating uncertainty when facing unknown territories. The plan our firm creates with you utilizes proven navigational tools to protect your family, establish stability in uncertainty, and build a path to a more certain future. Indigo Family Law cares for your family the way we care for our own, with consideration of the unique qualities and needs each family possesses.

Our team takes the legal reins in complex family matters while you focus on life. The life experiences of our family law attorneys reinforce the need for every family to have a trusted legal advocate. Life’s changes occur fast and create unnecessary challenges that planning can mitigate and often alleviate.

As your family’s situation alters, our family attorneys reevaluate your needs. We keep your family’s legal documentation updated and current for every stage of life. Our firm, offering more than 40 years of combined experience, is your family’s trustworthy partner in preparing a future that can weather any storm by openly discussing with you the good, the bad, and the ugly of the challenges ahead of you.

How Much Does a Georgetown Family Law Attorney Near Me Cost?

Many families in Georgetown feel the financial strain of maintaining their lives, raising children, and providing for their needs. They often choose to put off legal guidance until another day. Family crises and emergencies wait for no one. Our team wants you to have access to experienced family law services in Georgetown, SC, before the unexpected occurs.

Many family lawyers offer their services for an hourly fee. Unknown billing costs often lead to you contacting a Georgetown family law attorney near you only when the worst-case scenario occurs. Guessing the costs of attorney fees can deter you from proactively seeking legal guidance.

Indigo Family Law offers you an entire team ready to provide legal services at a flat-fee rate. Our fees are based on a plan you choose in advance, so you know what our services cost. We remove the guesswork, providing you access to a family law firm that understands life’s most challenging situations can arise at any time. We value honesty, transparency, and open communication.

Why Do I Need a Family Law Attorney?

Our convenience to you as a family law practice in Georgetown, SC, makes legal services accessible to you without leaving your community. A family law attorney with our firm will put your needs first, whether you are planning to marry, start a family, or start over by dissolving a relationship that no longer supports your best interests. We strive to understand your family’s unique needs in the same capacity that we honor our family’s diverse needs.

Indigo Family Law is here for the long haul. Our experience provides the legal rudder that steers you into safe harbors when waves of uncertainty crash around you. We offer calm, straightforward legal strategies to circumnavigate the emotional components of family dynamics and inform you of what to expect throughout the process.

Our service to countless clients along the South Carolina coast and in Horry County keeps clients returning and recommending our services in these reviews. Client trust in our personalized legal services keeps us striving to provide the legal services that families in our community deserve. Contact us to discuss these areas of family law that we can help you with.

Establishing a Marital Agreement

Creating marital agreements allows a couple to formulate a financial plan for life. These legal contracts may address assets, debts, and income before and during a marriage. While many couples view marriage agreements as beneficial documents in divorce, they can establish marital expectations and address a couple’s financial relationship.

Prenuptial Agreements

Marriages are legal contracts that govern finances, custody, and financial support should a relationship dissolve. However, many new couples bring assets, ideas about financial earnings, and goals about managing finances into a marriage that both partners should recognize. Prenuptial agreements are legal documents that clarify financial expectations and asset allocation before marriage.

Establishing a prenuptial agreement in South Carolina does not mean a marriage will end. Creating a prenuptial agreement provides couples with a financial blueprint to manage real property, earnings, debts, business ventures, and other financial possibilities before saying I do. Let a family attorney with our firm help you create enforceable agreements (Sec. 20-1-960) benefitting your marriage.

Postnuptial Agreements

You may need to create a South Carolina postnuptial agreement to identify spousal assets or to protect a spouse from legal and financial obligations you assume. A family lawyer can also assist with creating a postnuptial agreement to modify an existing prenuptial agreement due to significant changes in your life. Couples maintain the right to change or revoke agreements that no longer work.

Marital Dissolution in South Carolina

Two types of divorce may occur in South Carolina. A no-fault divorce occurs after a couple has lived apart for a year. Legal separations, like divorces, require legal action. Legal separation allows couples to explore their relationship further before choosing to divorce.

Fault-based divorces are granted based on four grounds under the law (Sec. 20-3-10). A divorce granted due to a spouse’s actions may take less time based on the specific ground for divorce. The safety of both spouses is crucial in determining how long it takes to get a divorce in South Carolina.

Legal Separation

Choosing to separate from a spouse legally requires a partner to seek a separate maintenance and support order (Sec. 20-3-130) until the marriage legally dissolves. The order may provide temporary directions for child custody, paying debts, the family home, and other assets until the divorce is finalized. There are significant differences between separation and divorce in Georgetown.

Each partner should recognize the differences to protect themselves during divorce. Working with a family law attorney near you can help you navigate immediate challenging decisions while avoiding potentially contentious confrontations. A legal advocate with our firm can offer guidance to help you avoid pitfalls impacting many partners who choose to move forward with divorce.

Divorce

Witnessing the profound impact of divorce on families is a call to action. Choosing to divorce in Georgetown is never simple. However, our family law attorneys strive to simplify the legal process for you and create an environment that allows you to thrive.

A divorce can be uncontested when both parties agree to the terms of a divorce. Contested divorces occur when spouses cannot settle on significant issues in a divorce agreement. Our family lawyers play pivotal roles in uncontested and contested divorces, striving to safeguard you in asset and debt allocation, child custody matters, and other issues you and your spouse must come to terms over.

Alimony

Determining alimony in a Georgetown, SC, divorce is complex. A court will consider various factors before awarding alimony and determining the length of time a spouse receives support. There are actions a spouse may commit that bar them from receiving alimony at all.

Property and Debt Division

Dividing marital assets is an overwhelming, emotional part of divorce. The division of assets and debts is to be equitable. However, the process may not appear fair to the partners who are dissolving a marriage.

Spouses, with the guidance of a family attorney, must consider what is separate property and what they acquire in marriage. The court may also consider a spouse’s actions causing the divorce. Experienced negotiation skills can contribute to a couple’s agreement on dividing assets and debts they accumulate during their relationship.

Business Division

Protecting business ventures often occurs through marital agreements. However, a business division may be necessary when couples start a business jointly but part ways. The court will determine what is a fair division, or your family law attorney can lead negotiations in the business division.

Caring for Children in Separation and Divorce and Establishing Paternity

Spouses are encouraged to put their differences aside to focus on a child’s best interest, even when a marriage struggles to thrive. Choosing who a child will live with and who will make important decisions concerning the child are part of the custody process. The courts encourage parents to work together to determine what is best, but retain the right to appoint a sole authority over a child.

Marrying someone is not necessary to have a child together. However, it may be essential to establish paternity to create a visitation schedule with your child or to initiate child support. Our firm offers supportive legal guidance in establishing paternity to provide for the connection and financial support of a child.

Child Custody and Grandparents’ Rights

A family attorney at Indigo Family Law can navigate the sensitive issues surrounding your most significant asset during a divorce. Parents can work together, or the court will determine who has legal and physical custody of a child. The courts generally strive for parental joint custody.

Questionable parental fitness may lead to the court giving a parent or guardian primary or physical custody of a child to protect their safety. Exploring grandparents’ rights to custody or adoption when child safety is a concern can provide for a child’s welfare when neglect is an issue. These sensitive cases are determined based on parental fitness and a grandparent’s role in a child’s life.

Visitation Rights

Spending time with a child is essential to establishing a relationship. The courts have no set amount of time to establish how often or how much time you will spend with your child. Visitation rights allow for flexibility to fit each family’s needs.

Child Support

Parents are responsible for caring for a child, whether or not they remain in a relationship with a partner. State guidelines determine what a parent pays in child support. Failing to pay can result in legal actions that a Georgetown, SC, family lawyer can initiate for you.

Modifying a Court Order

Situations in families change and may require you to modify a court order. Presenting compelling arguments to the court is vital to producing the most beneficial outcomes. Our team can help you effectively document and request modifications to child custody, child support, or alimony.

Growing a Family Through Adoption in Georgetown, SC

Pursuing legal adoption is a gift to the children you love and the family you are creating. As a founding partner, Brana Williams has personal experience with the joys, challenges, and possibilities that adoption presents. Our firm can guide you through adoption complexities and gladly assist with these various types of adoption:

Domestic or foreign
Infant or older child
Single or multiple children
Open or closed

You may also be a stepparent who chooses to adopt your spouse’s biological child. These legal actions can present complex scenarios. We strive to remove the overwhelming emotional aspects of stepparent adoptions to ensure your legal rights and a child’s protection. The strength and safety of your family are paramount to our firm.

Schedule a Consultation With Our Family Law Attorney Near Me Law Firm

The family lawyers in Georgetown, SC, at Indigo Family Law, can help with whatever life throws at you. Our founding attorneys, Brana Williams and Ryan Stampfle, have personal experience tackling life’s unexpected moments. Life’s challenges are a poignant reminder that family is everything.