Kourosh sat down for a long-form podcast interview covering the questions clients actually ask in the first meeting: what a judge is really looking for, what a settlement can do that a trial cannot, and why the small decisions early in a case tend to decide it. This guide distills that conversation into fifteen lessons, organized the way we would explain them to a client. The video is above; the writeup is below for anyone who wants to skim to the part that applies to them.
What Not to Do at a Custody Hearing
Three habits sink otherwise reasonable parents in a custody hearing. Badmouthing the other parent, on the stand or in texts that end up as exhibits, reads to a judge as a parent who cannot separate their own grievances from the child’s interests. Treating parenting time like a pizza to be sliced exactly in half, rather than a schedule built around the child’s actual routine, signals the same thing. And taking a position no reasonable co-parent could live with — one that makes no room for a relationship between the child and the other parent — tends to cost more credibility than it buys in leverage.
Judges see these patterns constantly, and they weigh them accordingly. The parent who comes across as capable of fostering the child’s relationship with the other side, even an imperfect other side, is the parent judges are inclined to trust with more responsibility.
Why Waiting to File Almost Never Helps
The most common mistake in the lead-up to a divorce is not a legal one — it is delay. Fear of the unknown keeps people in a holding pattern long after the marriage has functionally ended, when a short conversation with a good attorney would have replaced the fear with an actual plan.
Staying together "for the kids" is the version of this delay we hear most often, and it is usually the wrong call. Children absorb the tension of an unhealthy marriage whether or not anyone says the word "divorce" out loud, and waiting rarely improves the situation. It typically just prolongs it.
Why Attorney Fees Vary So Much
Hourly rates differ widely across family law attorneys, and the difference is usually not padding — it reflects experience, staff, and the ability to present a case persuasively when it matters. As with most services, you tend to get what you pay for.
Where there is a real financial disparity between spouses, Illinois courts can order the marital estate to advance legal fees to the less-wealthy spouse so that one side cannot simply outspend the other into a bad settlement. That relief levels the playing field, but it comes out of the same estate both spouses are dividing, so it is not free — it is a redistribution, not a windfall.
Behave Like the Judge Is Already Watching
The single most useful habit during a divorce is to communicate — texts, emails, voicemails, everything — as though a judge is already reading it. Because eventually, one might be. Staying organized and being fully honest with your own attorney matters just as much; an attorney who is surprised by the other side’s exhibits is an attorney who cannot protect you from them.
Absent a specific safety concern, it is also generally wise to stay in the marital home until a temporary parenting schedule or court order is in place, rather than leaving and inadvertently ceding the status quo the court will use as its starting point.
The First Fifteen Minutes of Trial
The opening minutes of a trial set the pace for everything that follows, which is why preparation for that window matters disproportionately. But the deeper point is about what judges are actually listening for: not who was the better spouse, but who can be shown as the "heroic parent" — the one who follows court orders and fosters a loving environment for the child regardless of how the other parent behaves.
Judges do not referee the marriage. They rule on what is in the child’s best interests, and the parent who consistently demonstrates that standard, in writing, on the record, well before trial ever starts, is the parent the court tends to believe.
How Illinois Actually Divides Property
Illinois is an equitable distribution state, not a community property state — the marital estate is not automatically split 50/50. A judge can allocate anywhere from 0% to 100% of a given asset based on the totality of the circumstances, including both spouses’ financial contributions and their homemaking or caregiving contributions, which carry real weight even where one spouse earned little or no outside income.
Closely held businesses are marital property subject to that same equitable analysis, not a separate category that stays untouched. And a 401(k) or other retirement account is not a personal piggy bank during the case — early withdrawals or transfers outside the normal course tend to draw scrutiny and can be treated as dissipation of the marital estate.
Does Cheating Matter in Court?
Marital misconduct, including infidelity, generally does not affect an Illinois divorce — the state has been no-fault since 2016, and judges are not in the business of assigning moral blame. There are two narrow exceptions. If marital funds were spent on the affair, that spending can be treated as dissipation of the marital estate and charged back against the spending spouse. And if a new partner is introduced to the children while the case is still pending, that decision can factor into the custody analysis.
Hiding money is a related but separate problem, and it is one the discovery process is built to solve: depositions, subpoenas, and forensic accounting routinely unwind transfers and accounts a spouse hoped would stay invisible.
Moving Out of State With the Children
Once a divorce case has been filed and served, a parent cannot relocate out of state with the children without either the other parent’s consent or a court order — the automatic restraints that come with filing exist precisely to prevent this. If no case has been filed yet, an Illinois court technically lacks jurisdiction to stop the move, but that does not make a sudden, unauthorized move with the children safe. It can be treated as an emergency, and in some cases as parental kidnapping, which brings in law enforcement and invites the court to intervene retroactively — usually not in the moving parent’s favor.
When a Lawyer Will Walk Away From a Client
Attorneys decline or drop clients for two main reasons: expectations that no court could realistically deliver, and requests that cross into illegal, unethical, or dishonest territory — hiding assets being the most common version. Neither is really about difficulty. A hard case is normal. A client asking their lawyer to help conceal money is a different problem entirely, and a good attorney will not take that risk on your behalf.
Custody vs. Parenting Time, and How Parents Lose Them
"Custody," in the sense most people mean it, is decision-making authority over a child’s health, religion, education, and extracurricular activities. "Parenting time" is the separate question of the actual visitation schedule. The two are decided independently, and a parent can hold significant parenting time while sharing or lacking decision-making authority, or vice versa.
Parents typically lose these rights, or have them curtailed, when they fail to act in the child’s best interests, show an inability to foster the child’s relationship with the other parent, have a documented history of disengagement from decision-making, present a genuine flight risk, or have endangered or abused the child. Courts do not take any of these findings lightly, but they will make them where the facts require it.
Settlement vs. Trial: The Scalpel vs. the Butcher Knife
Roughly 80% of divorce cases settle; only 15–20% actually go to trial. That ratio exists for a reason: a settlement lets both sides use a scalpel, negotiating custom, nuanced terms a judge could never order — a structured buyout of the marital home, for instance, timed around a child’s school year. A trial hands the decision to a judge who has to use a butcher knife: a rigid, binary ruling, like ordering the house sold outright, because the court’s tools are blunter than what two cooperating spouses can design themselves.
A good settlement is almost always preferable to a good trial outcome, because even a "win" at trial is still a result imposed on you rather than one you helped shape.
Prenuptial Agreements, and Two Surprising Illinois Rules
A prenuptial agreement is simply a logical way to decide the terms of a potential separation while both spouses are still on good terms and thinking clearly. Prenups can safely predetermine maintenance, attorney’s fees, and the division of assets and debts. They cannot dictate child custody or child support — those are always decided based on the child’s circumstances at the time, not an agreement signed years earlier.
Two rules surprise most clients. First, Illinois does not recognize common law marriage, so years of cohabitation, on their own, never create a legal marriage no matter how long the relationship lasts. Second, while married parents have no legal obligation to pay for a child’s college, divorced parents in Illinois can be court-ordered to contribute to college expenses under the right circumstances — a real asymmetry that catches people off guard.
The One Rule That Matters Most
If there is a single takeaway, it is this: keep your side of the fence clean. Follow every court order to the letter, stay honest with the court and your own attorney, and do the right thing even when the other side does not. Judges rarely grant relief to a litigant who comes in with unclean hands, and the parent who can demonstrate a clean record, consistently, is the parent who tends to walk away from the case with the outcome they wanted.