One of the reviews on a Battlestar Galactica CD at Amazon.com is from a woman who says it ruined her marriage.

Her husband became obsessed with the television show, then went onto websites, Twitter, Skype, listening to podcasts, texting and chatting about the show.  Finally he went to a Battlestar Galactica convention in Texas and now lives with a woman he met on the website.  She says he forgot all about his wife, children, family, home and job.

They are now involved in a bitter divorce.  This can’t be good for his custody and visitation case.

LeBron James said last night that he asked his mother, Gloria James, for advice while he was making up his mind to play basketball for the Miami Heat.

In the meantime, Leicester Bryce Stovell, 55, was filing suit in the U.S. District Court in D.C., claiming that he is LeBron’s father.  Stovell is a lawyer in private practice, formerly with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The 22 page, 95 paragraph complaint alleges Stovell met Gloria in a Washington bar in 1984 and goes through the history of their relationship.  Stovel is suing both LeBron and Gloria for $4 million for fraud, defamation, misrepresentation, breach of oral contract and tortious interference with contract.

My most important client is not the diplomat who called from overseas for wire instructions so he could send me his retainer for a post divorce dispute.

My most important client is not the stock broker who made a million dollars last year and is looking at life time alimony and his soon to be ex-wife’s mounting legal fees that he may have to pay.

My most important client is not the wealthy businesswoman who brings her daughter to my office for a parenting plan and separation agreement.

Last night, my seven year old son looked up at me and said, “Dad, can you come to my school play tomorrow?”  I set all those urgent cases aside this morning and spent three otherwise billable hours waiting for my son to say his three lines.  Because he is my most important client.

My son finished the last two problems on his math homework a bit two quickly I thought as he stuffed it into his backpack.  I asked him to let me see it.  It was multiple choice.  His answers were wrong.

“I just guessed,” he said.  He was in a hurry to get to his DSI, which if you have kids you know is a handheld electronic game.  I wish he applied just ten percent of the energy and time he spends on that game to his school work.

This morning, I had an idea.  I told both my children on the way to the bus stop, “Boys, life is like a giant DSI game.”

“It is?” they chimed.

“Yes, each grade in school is a different level.  Every grade you get in a class is like a Pokemon (pocket monster) that gives you additional powers.  There is a Pokemon for math, one for reading, one for spelling, one for science and so on.  Show up.  Be aggressive.  Attack your work.  Get as many Pokemons as you can.”

“Gee, Dad, you must be on level 100 by now.”  I smiled.

In a recent New York case, a judge decided that the father should have unsupervised visitation with his child after a transition period to be supervised by a transition therapist.  Then, when the therapist decided the time was right, visitation would be unsupervised.

However, the appeals court found that “The court improperly delegated to a mental health professional its authority to determine issues involving the best interests of the child, i.e., when unsupervised visitation should commence.”

The court told the parties that they would have to make another application to the court regarding unsupervised visitation, at which time the court may render a decision on that issue, with the assistance, if necessary, of further reports from the intervention therapist.  Linda R. v Ari Z., 71 AD3d 465 (2010)

The court has ruled that Joseph Reyes will be allowed to take his 3-year-old daughter, Ela, to church according to the Chicago Sun-Times.  Rebecca Reyes, who has full custody of the child in their divorce proceedings, said the father was breaching an agreement they made that Ela would be raised in the Jewish faith.

The court also ruled that the father would have Christmas and Easter holidays with the child and the mother would have the Jewish holidays.

But Reyes still faces contempt sanctions for taking his daughter to church in violation of a previous court order.

In 2004, Travis Deon Henry had reason to be happy, having just signed a 25 million dollar contract with the NFL’s Denver Broncos.  He would soon need the money because Jameshia L. Beacham of Georgia filed a paternity suit against him.

And that’s not all.  Henry had eight other children in multiple states and child support orders for almost all of them.  Although Henry made almost $50,000 a month, he was behind on his temporary child support payments to Beacham when the matter came on for trial.  So the Judge ordered him to place $250,000 in trust to secure the payments.  The trust would be returned to Henry after his child support obligation was satisfied.

Henry appealed the legality of the trust fund requirement but the appeals court found that the trial court had the authority to fashion such a remedy in these circumstances.    Henry v. Beacham, A09A1129 (2009).

When her estranged husband Joseph Reyes had their 3-year-old daughter baptized in the Catholic Church without telling her, Rebecca Shapiro of Chicago filed for temporary restraining order.  She claimed that this could result in harm to the child.

A family law judge issued the order prohibiting Reyes from “exposing his daughter to any other religion other than the Jewish religion during his visitation” for 30 days.  Reyes defied the court order and took his daughter to a Chicago church with news cameras rolling.  Shapiro asked the court to find him in contempt and sentence him to jail for up to six months.

Father’s rights lawyers will be watching this case because the father contends that a court shouldn’t be deciding a child’s religious practices.

“I hate math,” said Lee to his dad as he brushed his teeth in the morning.

“Why?” I asked.

“It’s nothing but problems, problems and more problems.”

“Son,” said his dad.  “Thank God that every day you get up and have problems to solve.  Because you know when there are no more problems to solve?”

“No, when?” he said.

“When you’re dead.  You were put on Earth to solve problems.  Life is full of problems.  They are there to challenge you and make you grow.  Every day you have problems it means you are alive.  So let’s go eat breakfast and start solving  problems.”

Postings on Facebook are turning up as Exhibit 1 in more and more custody battles.  Although custody is supposed to be about best interests of the children, parties in conflict are more often than not inclined to try to show the other is a bad parent.

If you post your thoughts on Facebook, you may be giving the other side a roadmap for your case.  Do you want your spouse and his or her counsel to know what you are thinking and what your strategy is?

If you make angry statements about your spouse, you may be stepping in wet concrete.  The other side can use these statements in court to attack your credibility if you say something different.  Or to show the judge what kind of person you are if the statements are unreasonable.

The solution is to keep this in mind.  The first thing your spouse’s attorney will do after signing the retainer, is print out all your Facebook posts to use against you at trial.