In The News
Read news and media mentions with the Sterling team.Firm Announcements & Media Coverage
Sterling Lawyers, LLC is a trusted family law firm serving communities throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. Our team is regularly featured in media coverage and industry publications for our client-centered approach and knowledge of divorce, child custody, and family law matters. We want to highlight our firm's news, media appearances, community involvement, and press releases that demonstrate our ongoing commitment to supporting families during life's most challenging transitions.
How to Choose a Financial Advisor For Your Family
When choosing a financial advisor, decide if you need all aspects of financial planning or an investment advisor only. You'll want to ask how the financial advisor is compensated, what type of clients they work with, examples of success, up-to-date credentials, references, and finally if they are a fiduciary.
Is a Degree Considered Marital Property in a Divorce?
What is the reason to why a higher-education degree is not considered to be a part of marital assets? How will that affect you and your current situation?
How to Effectively Prepare for Divorce Court
You want to handle your divorce on your own but you are uncertain about what to expect in court. Here are three things you should know will be expected of you by the judge handling your divorce.
The Art of Refinancing During a Divorce
Whether you decide to keep or sell the marital home when going through a divorce, you are going to have to go through the proper steps to ensure that everything is handled to tend to both parties' wishes.
How to Approach Transitions During Family Law Matters
Often, we can better our approach to these scenarios with the help of professionals in the area of Psychology, who can guide us down the best paths to accepting these transitions. There are plenty of instances where working with such professionals can allow our perspectives on a certain situation to change it from a tragedy to a triumph.
How to Propel Your Career and Lower Alimony
Will I have to pay alimony? How long will I have to pay alimony? These are top questions most divorcing people want to know. The answer depends on how much your spouse makes and whether they are earning the most money based on their experience and education. Understand how a vocational expert can help increase your spouse's income and lower your alimony.
We interview an expert, Sarah Holmes of Vocational Professionals, to address some of your concerns about your spouse and their employment opportunities. You can learn more about Sarah Holmes at www.vocpros.com.
Top Secrets to Selling a Home During Divorce
Are you going through a divorce and want to get out of your home mortgage? Do you want to sell your home? Are you worried about getting enough money out of the sale of your home? We have asked a top realtor the most frequently asked questions from clients going through a divorce and complied the answers here to help you decide what the best steps for you to get the most money out of the sale of your home.
How to Decide When to Say “No” to Your Friends and Family
Are you overwhelmed? Are your family and friends still asking you to help them when you have absolutely nothing left to give? Here are some useful tips to to reduce your stress and decide whether to help a friend or family member when you are feeling burnt out or overwhelmed.
Complexities of House Appraisals During Divorce
No one enjoys the thought of splitting their assets during a divorce, but it's an important step to equally distributing the things two people have jointly owned.
The One Question You Must Ask Yourself Every Single Day
If you are considering a change or want an improvement in your relationships, increase your money, or amplify your success….this one question can be a game changer.
The Science of Tracking Finances: The Job of a Forensic Accountant
Money is a struggle that we all face on a constant basis, and sometimes those struggles lead to a divorce due to a lack of openness about finances. In these situations, you want to be sure you are covered. Whether you believe your spouse has hidden finances or assets during the marriage, or if you have never handled your finances in the past and are worried about dishonesty, talking with a Forensic Accountant could potentially save you a fortune. Today, we speak with one of these professionals about what they do and how they can help during a divorce.
How to Emotionally Survive a Divorce
While many think about divorce in a legal light, most forget the emotional struggles that come with that, for both you and your family. Ending a long time relationship creates negative feelings that we just want to bottle up inside, where it neither gets acknowledged or dealt with. Professionals in the field of psychology agree that doing this instead of dealing with these negative emotions head on create more problems in the long run, for both you and your children or family. Today, we hear about how professionals in psychotherapy can help both with the divorce itself and the emotional burden that comes with it.
Meet CSS Training MGR Mary Sankey
Mary joined Sterling Lawyers in March of 2018. Under Mary's mentoring, the Client Solutions Team learns to validate prospective and current clients through empathetic listening.
The Benefits of Day Camps for Kids
Anthony Karls, the host of Flourishing Families, sits down with Pat Quin of Cedar Springs Outdoor Adventure Day Camp and the conversation quickly turns to the benefits of a child attending day camp. They discuss how day camps provide the child an opportunity to develop the foundations of their character.
Meet CSS MGR Kelley Shaw
Client Solutions Team manager Kelley Shaw has been with Sterling Lawyers since 2015. “Every interaction with every client and every potential client, is an opportunity for us to build relationships across our community,” Kelley says, in this interview.
The Stages of Financial Independence
We recently sat down with George Schmidley of Affiliated Financial Advisors for this video about getting started towards financial independence and followed up with questions where we ask him about the stages of financial independence and if this were a goal or a process.
The Power of Validating Others
We all seek validation and likely have a basic understanding of the benefit of validating others. However, this simple skill is often the hardest interpersonal skill to understand and master.
Do I Have to Pay Alimony if My Ex is Living With Someone?
Many factors affect alimony. A spouse does not have to marry someone legally in order to be eligible for change in spousal support. Two people can be in a de-facto married relationship where they are not married and they act as a married couple by living together and paying everyday bills, etc.
Maintaining Communication During Divorce
Children may make the idea of “no contact” a little tricky after your divorce. If you have kids, it's important to put your differences aside for the betterment of the child's life.
The Changing Practice of Home Appraisal
The process of diving property and debt during/after the divorce is called property division. When it comes to homes, whether you want your house to appraise above or below the fair market rate depends on you wanting to keep it or be bought out.
What are the Benefits of Parenting Coaching?
It may not be the easiest thing to acknowledge the need for outside help, but when you do everyone will have the opportunity to benefit for parent coaching.
How Earning Capacity is Imputed will Affect your Divorce Settlement
If you lose your job or are looking to go back into the workforce while going through a divorce, your earning capacity will be evaluated and imputed based on what is learned about your earning potential. This could affect your divorce settlement.
What Documents Should You Collect in a Divorce?
Collect the things you need before it's too late! Get ahead while you can in the early stages of divorce by getting the documents you need.
The Benefits of a Marital Settlement Agreement in Divorce
The goal of a marital settlement agreement is to avoid a costly trail and get the best outcome that suits each party in a divorce. An attorney will create the agreement, which will outline all aspects of the divorce.
Extremely Useful Information When Filing Taxes for Divorcees
Filing for taxes can be complicated by itself, but when family trouble gets thrown into the mix it can feel overwhelming. That's why it's important to know what questions and answers to have during a divorce.
How Debt is Divided in Divorce
Just as far as there has to be a division in property in a divorce, there also has to be a division of debt. Make sure that you understand all of what the debts are and have an idea on how you would like to divide them.
The Macaron with Madame Macaron MKE
When it comes to macarons, Madame Macaron says, “Patience is a virtue.” We only need three ingredients to make these delicious cookies, but the level of precision involved is similar to doing a science experiment.
Relocating With Children After Divorce
In Wisconsin a custodial parent Should Not move a child away from the non-custodial parent without a court order. The law in Wisconsin requires you to make a formal motion when moving more than 100 miles away, or if moving across state lines.
Finding Positive Parenting Solutions
What are Positive Parenting Solutions? Parenting Place’s Triple P Program is an evidenced based trauma informed program that focuses on developing Positive Parenting Solutions. There are different programs structured for the specific needs of the parents and the children.
Life During Quarantine As We Experienced It
We all have been going through this coronavirus Safer At Home lockdown together. In this fun video, Anthony Karls gets on Zoom and chats with some of our attorneys and staff to learn how they have been surviving the quarantine while working from home and staying safe.