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A complete list of the Florida family law issues we scope at intake. Every line maps to a real engagement scope — covered in your base fee, a line item on your quote, or a topic for a confidential consult.
Starting at $2,500 (no kids) / $3,500 (with kids)
Uncontested Divorce
A Florida dissolution under § 61.052 where you and your spouse agree on every divisible issue. The flat fee covers the standard work product end-to-end: Petition, Marital Settlement Agreement, parenting plan (if children), child-support guidelines worksheet, mandatory financial disclosure under Rule 12.285, and Final Judgment. The issues below show what the base scope covers and what triggers a line item on your quote.
Property division (§ 61.075)
- Marital home — title work, deed prep, transfer or sale through final judgment
- Marital home with minor child in residence — Art. X §4 homestead protection, joinder language
- Additional Florida parcels and out-of-state property
- Premarital home with marital paydown — § 61.075(6)(a)(1)(c) tracing
- Vehicles — HSMV title transfers, lien releases (high-value / marine billed separately)
- Bank and brokerage accounts, joint credit cards, joint installment debts
- Joint mortgage with one spouse retaining home — refinance triggers, hold-harmless
- 401(k), 403(b), IRA, Roth — QDRO drafting and plan-administrator routing
- Defined-benefit pension — in pay status vs. coverture-fraction analysis
- Stock options and RSUs — coverture analysis, intrinsic vs. Black-Scholes
- Cryptocurrency — wallet identification, exchange records, valuation date
- Marital business or joint LLC — goodwill analysis, buyout structuring
- Inheritance, gift, or settlement proceeds — § 61.075(6)(b) tracing into the marital estate
- Foreign assets — FBAR exposure, IRS Form 8938 coordination
Children (§§ 61.13, 61.046, 61.30)
- Parental responsibility — shared by default under § 61.046(17), § 61.13(2)(c)(2)
- Timesharing schedule — rebuttable presumption of equal timesharing (July 2023 amendment)
- Holiday, school-break, and long-distance schedules
- Decision-making allocation: education, healthcare, religion, extracurricular
- Child support — § 61.30 worksheet, overnights, daycare, health insurance
- Child with documented special needs — IDEA / 504 coordination, ABLE-account drafting
- Dependent-adult-child support under § 61.1255 (2023 reform)
- Relocation clause — § 61.13001 framework drafted prospectively
- UCCJEA jurisdiction — children with less than 6 months in Florida
- Name change for minor child — § 68.07
- Passport restrictions and OFAC holds to prevent international removal
Alimony — post-2023 reform (§ 61.08)
- Bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, or durational alimony — duration caps per § 61.08(8)
- Maximum-award formula — lesser of need or 35% of net-income differential
- Permanent alimony — no longer available prospectively under 2023 reform
- Retirement-modification clause in the MSA — amended § 61.14 framework
- Imputation of income — § 61.30(2)(b) when voluntary unemployment is at issue
- Compulsory life-insurance securing support under § 61.08(3)
Procedural & ancillary
- Mandatory disclosure under Rule 12.285 — tax returns, statements, financial affidavits
- Service by publication when the other party can't be located
- Former-name restoration
- Foreign marriage or translated documents
- Existing prenup or postnup to interpret in the dissolution
- Tax coordination — capital gains, passthrough income, dependency exemption split
Retainer from $10,000 (estates over $1M: $30,000)
Contested Divorce
A contested divorce is a fundamentally different work product — the retainer absorbs the items below rather than charging per-factor. The list below describes what the retainer covers; large-estate matters typically refresh the retainer once during representation.
Pleadings, discovery, and motion practice
- Petition and Counterpetition under Rule 12.110
- Temporary-relief motions — support, exclusive use of home, parenting, § 61.16 fees
- Motion to dismiss / strike — standing, jurisdiction, sufficiency
- Initial mandatory disclosure under Rule 12.285 (30-day deadline)
- Round 1 and Round 2 interrogatories under Form 12.930(b)(1)
- Requests for production under Rule 12.350 and admissions under Rule 12.370
- Subpoenas duces tecum to banks, employers, brokerages, plan administrators
- Motion to compel and discovery-sanctions practice
- Motion for protective order — privilege, tax-return, psychotherapist
- Forensic-imaging of devices in hidden-asset cases
- Social-media and text-message discovery — authentication under Rule 90.901
- Hidden-asset investigation and lifestyle analysis
Depositions and experts
- Party and third-party fact-witness depositions under Rule 12.310
- Deposition of a minor child — Rule 12.407 protections
- Business valuator — personal vs. enterprise goodwill (Busto v. Arias)
- Vocational evaluator — § 61.30(2)(b) imputation cases
- Forensic accountant — hidden-asset tracing, business cash-flow normalization
- Real-estate and personal-property appraisers
- Actuary — pension present-value (Cancel v. Cancel)
- Parenting evaluator under § 61.20
- Substance-abuse / forensic-toxicology experts
Court-appointed neutrals and ADR
- Guardian ad Litem — § 61.403
- Parenting Coordinator — § 61.125
- General Magistrate practice — Rule 12.490 (as amended 2024)
- Child support hearing officer — Rule 12.491
- Court-ordered mediation under Rule 12.740
- Collaborative-divorce track under § 61.55 (separate engagement)
Trial and post-trial
- Pretrial stipulations and asset-and-liability schedule preparation
- Trial exhibits, witness prep, sequestration compliance
- Bench trial — half-day uncontested through multi-day contested
- Closing argument and proposed final judgment with findings
- Motion for rehearing — Rule 12.530 to preserve appellate challenge
- Enforcement / contempt — usually a separate post-judgment retainer
- Appeal preparation — separate appellate engagement
Starting at $4,500 — factor-eligible
Modifications & Enforcement
A supplemental petition for change in circumstances since the final judgment. Discovery is narrower than a divorce — focused on what changed — but the procedural rules are the same. The base fee covers the standard modification or enforcement work; the GAP factors below are added when the matter has the specific complication.
Modifications
- Timesharing / parenting plan — substantial change, best-interests showing
- Child support — § 61.30(1)(b) $50-or-15% threshold, retroactive to filing date
- Child support — recalculation when overnights shift
- Alimony — post-2023 retirement clause, § 61.14 six-month window, 10-factor analysis
- Alimony — substantial change in financial circumstances; voluntary vs. involuntary
- Alimony — termination on supportive relationship (§ 61.14(1)(b)) or retirement
- Relocation petition under § 61.13001 — verified petition, 60-day notice, 11-factor showing
- Modification when prior orders involve a custodial third party
- Modification of an out-of-state order — UCCJEA jurisdictional analysis
- Motion to set aside a final judgment under Rule 12.540
Enforcement and contempt
- Child-support enforcement — income withholding, license suspension, garnishment
- Alimony enforcement — civil contempt with purge provisions
- MSA non-monetary obligations — conveyance, refinance, life-insurance verification
- UIFSA enforcement against out-of-state obligor
- Civil contempt under Pugh / Bowen purge analysis
- Passport revocation — § 2,500 arrears threshold
- Driver-license and professional-license suspension
- Writs of garnishment for arrears
Agreed: $1,995 (factor-eligible) · Contested: $4,500 fixed
Paternity
Governed by Fla. Stat. ch. 742 and the 2023 amendments to § 742.10 and § 744.301. Recent cases (Bronner v. Longden, Fla. 4th DCA 2024; Schauer v. Mitchell, Fla. 1st DCA 2025) confirm the elevated status of a voluntary acknowledgement of paternity.
Establishment
- Voluntary Acknowledgement of Paternity (VAP) confirmation — 60-day rescission window
- § 742.011 petition when no VAP and no marriage at conception
- DNA testing coordination — chain of custody, court order if non-consensual
- Department of Revenue Title IV-D paths
- Establishment via inheritance (§ 732.108) or workers' comp (§ 440.16)
- Pre-birth orders — limited to surrogacy under § 742.13
Disestablishment
- Disestablishment by mother — fraud, duress, or material mistake (Bronner v. Longden)
- Disestablishment by male under § 742.18 — strict prerequisites; no equity if knowing
- Birth-certificate amendment after disestablishment — DOH Office of Vital Statistics
Parenting and support orders within paternity
- Parenting plan and timesharing — same § 61.13 framework, equal-timesharing presumption
- Child support and retroactive support — must be pleaded under recent DCA cases
- Surname determination — best-interests standard
- Grandparent intervention — limited standing under § 751
- Same-sex parental establishment — equitable-parent doctrine
- Adult-child paternity establishment — inheritance-driven
- Putative-father registry claims under § 63.054 if adoption is contemplated
Drafting $1,495 (factor-eligible) · Review $895 (fixed)
Prenuptial & Postnuptial Agreements
Florida adopted the Uniform Premarital Agreement Act at Fla. Stat. § 61.079 effective October 1, 2007. The core constraints — what a prenup can and cannot do — are non-negotiable; everything below is in scope for routine drafting or independent review.
What we draft into the agreement
- Property classification — premarital, nonmarital, and marital characterization
- Spousal-support waiver or modification — § 61.079 carve-out for public assistance
- Choice-of-law provision under UPAA § 6(g)
- Buy-sell and encumbrance rights during marriage
- Distribution on death — elective-share, homestead, agreement-to-make-a-will
- Life-insurance beneficiary designations and ILIT coordination
- Amendment and revocation procedures
- Sunset clause and execution logistics (two-witness and notary)
Validity safeguards we build in
- Mandatory written-and-signed form under § 61.079(3)
- Mandatory financial disclosure — § 61.079(5) (or knowing written waiver)
- Independent counsel for the other party — strongly recommended
- Voluntary execution — no duress, coercion, undue influence
- Unconscionability check — two-prong under § 61.079(7)
- Child-support and timesharing waivers — non-waivable, recital included
- Wedding within 60 days — voluntary-execution defense risk, additional documentation
Prenup review (existing draft from the other side)
- Clause-by-clause comment letter with redlined revisions
- 30-minute consultation walking through implications
- Recommended revisions with the rationale tied to Florida case law
Confidential consult required — no quote shown
Domestic Violence Injunctions
Any matter where the client indicates a history of domestic violence, abuse, or an active protective order routes automatically to a confidential intake — no quote shown online, single CTA to a private call. The list below is the substantive checklist that drives that intake conversation.
Injunction practice
- Domestic violence injunction — § 741.30, ex parte temporary order, hearing within 15 days
- Repeat / dating violence — § 784.046, two-qualifying-acts requirement
- Stalking — § 784.0485 course-of-conduct analysis
- Sexual violence injunction — § 784.046 distinct standard
- Exploitation of elderly or vulnerable — § 825.1035
- Defense against a DV petition — sufficiency-of-evidence challenge
- Modification and enforcement of an existing injunction
Concurrent issues
- Concurrent dissolution + DV — Rule 12.740 mediation restrictions
- DV evidence in a custody case — § 61.13(2)(c)(2) statutory presumption
- Firearms surrender under § 790.233 and the federal Lautenberg overlay
- Address Confidentiality Program under § 741.405
- Safe-harbor parenting plan provisions — supervised exchange, OFW-only
- Concurrent criminal-court coordination with State Attorney's Office
- Trauma-informed intake — paced disclosure, no pre-call quote
Don't see your issue?
Most matters touch five to fifteen of the issues above. The qualifier surfaces the ones that drive your quote in five minutes; anything outside the menu gets discussed on a confidential consult.
Attorney Advertising. This page describes the typical scope of services offered by Louis Law Group, PLLC. It is not legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Specific case outcomes depend on facts that require individual evaluation.