Articles tagged: William Levine

The Goose, the Gander and the Alimony Reform Act

By William M. Levine and Hon. E. Chouteau Levine (Ret.)

[Note:  to avoid a gender pretzel and to avoid offending anyone, the hypothetical clients in this piece are styled as a married couple of either or both male or female gender.] 

Five years and many appellate cases later, the Alimony Reform Act (eff. March 1, 2012) (“ARA”) now has some meat on its bones. The more we work with it, however, more scenarios emerge that we had not previously considered; and we wonder if the drafters did either. One aspect we have been pondering is how critical elements of the statute address the scenario where former spouses “trade places” after divorce.  In other words, the parties’ earnings change inversely, sufficiently to make the initial alimony payor a putative payee.  

In…