Articles

Imagine you are a juror in a case involving infant abuse. The treating physician testifies that, when the infant arrived in the hospital, she was covered with large bruises. The doctor then states, “The family was awkward, and the father was visibly irritated.” The family also offered no explanation for the infant’s condition. After accurately informing you that accidental bruising is exceedingly rare in infants, the doctor concludes the infant’s bruising is consistent with trauma caused by a severe beating. He adds: “I see this sort of thing every day, and it’s heartbreaking.”

Brittany Zamora has garnered nationwide attention for her nefarious sexual relationship with her 13-year-old student. Zamora recently pleaded guilty to several sexual abuse charges and is now facing a lengthy prison sentence. However, a lesser known civil suit also surfaced, claiming Zamora’s school district[1] knew about the abuse months before the parents discovered it and did nothing to intervene.[2]  Given a failure to report child abuse constitutes a class 6 felony under Arizona law,[3] we ought to be curious whether the district’s officials could be criminally liable, too.

There is roughly one vehicle for every two Americans. The ubiquity of vehicles makes it difficult to imagine a divorce that doesn’t involve a vehicle. Regardless of whether the vehicle is a Honda Odyssey minivan or a vintage Packard that is part of an extensive car collection, utilizing a sound valuation methodology is crucial to both promote settlement and, if necessary, present compelling facts to the court.

Few things provide a person with more purpose and joy than raising children. The U.S. Supreme Court held, “even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain a vital interest in preventing the irretrievable destruction of their family life.” In other words, parents have a constitutional right to direct “the care, custody and management of their child.”In Arizona, “only in the most extraordinary circumstances, when all other efforts to preserve the relationship have failed,” can the parent-child relationship be terminated. Notwithstanding, courts, at the urging of the Department of Child Safety (“DCS”), have severed parental rights based on little more than agency opinion and unchallenged expert testimony.

It is not unfamiliar to those practicing family law to have a client or opposing party provide a tax-return that does not match their salary. Most of these discrepancies result from individuals...

Steady economic recovery in Arizona has resulted in job growth, a demand for housing, the rise of home prices and, in turn, an increase in the number of people obtaining their real estate licenses...