I am a public figure, but I want a private divorce, is that possible?
I occasionally represent public figures or people who some might consider to be celebrities, and oftentimes people in that situation want a divorce that is more private. We have open courts acts, and so much of what happens in the courts is very public, and there's not much that you can do about closing the courts to the public. You can, in some cases, ask that your final decreed be sealed, or you can ask that the case be sealed, but whether or not that is going to happen is up to the judge of the case. The second thing that you can do is you can at least keep your property division private by use of a document that we call an agreement incident to divorce. And essentially what happens is you've got to have a public divorce decree, and the divorce decree needs to contain the key provisions related to your children if you have children. But your property division agreement can be memorialized in different document that you reference in the divorce decreed, but that you agree not to file with the court so that the public doesn't see your assets or how they were divided.
By
Diggs & Sadler
