UPDATES IN MICHIGAN FAMILY LAW

Man held in Contempt for Facebook Rant, Ordered to Apologize on Facebook

Mark Byron was angry about a domestic relations court protective order that ordered him to stay away from his wife and affected his custody of his son. So he vented on his personal Facebook page, stating:

". . . if you are an evil, vindictive woman who wants to ruin your husbands life and take your son’s father away from him completely – all you need to do is say that you're scared of your husband or domestic partner...”

When his wife learned of it, her lawyers filed a motion to have him held in contempt for violating the protective order that prevented Byron from doing anything to cause his wife “to suffer physical and/or mental abuse, harassment, annoyance, or bodily injury.”

Photo Security Problem | iPhone, iPad, iPod

According to the New York Times, a test application was able to copy an iPhone’s photo library after it was given access to location data.

Developers of applications for Apple’s mobile devices, and Apple itself, came under scrutiny this month after reports that some apps were taking people’s address book information without their knowledge.

As it turns out, address books are not the only things up for grabs. Photos are also vulnerable. After a user allows an application on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to have access to location information, the app can copy the user’s entire photo library, without any further notification or warning, according to app developers. Read more here on the New York Times website.

Apple Loophole Gives Developers Access to Photos, Nick Bilton, February 28, 2012.

This is reminiscent of another threat to personal security that I blogged here. Read What's a "geotag?" | To Protect Yourself and Your Family, You Want to Know, posted August 10, 2010

Interesting Calculators

Have you ever needed to know what time it is in another country? Here's a link to a terrific website that allows you to convert your time into the time in many, many US and/or foreign cities. Time Difference Calculator.

But there is much, much more. Create a customized calendar here. There is a calculator here to for the distance from one place to another. Explore the website. There are many valuable tools here.

Free PDF Creator

Thanks to Elizabeth Sadowski, Oakland County, Michigan family lawyer for this neat tip! She has provided the URL for download of a free PDF creator. But this PDF creator has some very special features. The Nitro PDF Creator, among other things, does the following:

Creates the ideal PDF

Choose from predfined creation profiles — Web-ready, Office-ready, or Print-ready — or choose your precise settings. The PDF creation is integrated with Windows in a drag-an-drop feature, so it converts files faster into PDF documents and does it straight from any folder.

Teens and Risk of Suicide | Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

I'm so old I used to babysit for 25 cents/hour and all the Coke and potato chips I could eat. The cool thing was getting to watch TV (black and white) until all hours of the night. There was always a public service announcement that said in a dark, ominous voice: "Do you know where your children are?"

The risks to teens today must be twenty times the risk back then. A recent New York Times article pointed out that parents and friend of teens today have option to access an alert that may let them know where their children "are" today. Teens today are subject to many more stressors than teens in my youth. Depression, bullying, lack of self-esteem . . . all kinds of things are going on that make it important to stay in touch with where teens "are" -- not geographically, but emotionally.

Happy Birthday, Mom. And by the way . . .

Over 400 news sources have picked up the story published on February 17, 2012 about Mary Kantorowski. It seems that her 71-year-old son wants to evict her from her home. She has lived in the home about 59 years. On Dec. 13, 2011, his mother's 98th birthday, Peter Kantorowski had his mother served with eviction papers. He claims she'd be better off living with people her own age.

According to news sources, Mrs. Kantorowski lives in a house that her husband worked two jobs for dozens of years to build, including several additions. The house is assessed at more than $333,000 dollars.

Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents

You have a case in which you need to serve a party who lives in a foreign country. You need to know about the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters.  According to an article written by Mark A. Canizio and Jessica Y. Singh for the New York Law Journal (August 27, 2010):

"Extending for more than 4,000 miles, the Silk Road used to interconnect a network of trade routes across the Asian continent with the Mediterranean world as well as Africa and Europe. The Silk Road once used to transport foreign goods, especially luxuries such as satin, spices, medicines, jewels, and of course, silk, from other parts of the world. Undoubtedly, "the world was getting smaller" then.

Assistance for Service Members in Need

A service member, former client of mine, in response to my query about assistance for some special needs of a current client, active duty in the Navy, made me aware of this grant program. If you are in need or if you are a lawyer with a service member who has financial difficulties, check out http://www.usacares.org/ This organization provides grants, not loans, to service members.

Note also that there is a place to make donations--both of time and money. Having seen some pay statements of service members, it's clear to me that we are not paying them enough for what they do! A donation to USA Cares would be a good way to show your appreciation.

Scott Bassett Reviews & Recommends iPad and Apps for Mobility

I've had my iPad 2 since July of 2011.  My first trip with it was to the Family Law Section's Summer Conference on Mackinac Island.  It is a great travel device.  I also use it regularly in my appellate practice to read and annotate trial transcripts and the rest of the trial court file (scanned to PDF, of course).  I've tried several PDF annotation apps such as PDF iAnnotate, but lately have been using Notability for that purpose.  Documents to Go Premium handles viewing and editing MS Office documents.  I use SugarSync to transfer and sync my case documents from my PC to my iPad.  It works very well and I've never found the 16 GB storage (mine is the cheapest iPad 2 model) to be a limitation.  Lately I've been leaving paper behind when I fly up for appeal arguments and just sync the case file, including briefs, to the iPad.