Family Law Attorneys in Chester County, PA

Our firm has a full-service family law practice, with attorneys who handle every type of family law matter, including divorce, custody, support, and protection from domestic abuse.

DIVORCE

Perna & Abracht, LLC handles divorces with marital estates of all sizes and levels of complexity, from marriages with several conventional assets such as a home, bank accounts, and retirement plans, to marriages with multi-million dollar marital estates that include pension plans, deferred compensation plans, executive savings plans, stock options, and business-ownership interests. We also handle insolvent marital estates where marital debts outweigh marital assets. Our firm thoroughly identifies and values all marital and non-marital assets and debts, and determines our client’s fair share of the marital estate and any other monetary relief, such as alimony and loan paybacks, to which the client is entitled. Although we always attempt to negotiate an out-of-court settlement so as to avoid for our clients the emotional turmoil and financial expense of a trial, our firm zealously litigates the matter in court if no agreement can be reached.

CUSTODY

We handle all types of custody matters, including initial custody disputes, petitions for modification of existing custody arrangements, and petitions requesting or defending against an out-of-state relocation with a minor child. Our firm strongly believes that no one custody arrangement works best for all families, and our attorneys are committed to crafting and negotiating custody arrangements that work best for our client and his or her children. Although we emphasize resolution through artful negotiation in order to minimize both the effects of a divorce/separation on children and the financial cost to a parent fighting a custody battle, we realize that this is not always possible. In such cases, where a negotiated custody arrangement is simply not possible and/or not in the child’s best interest, we argue our client’s cause in court.

SUPPORT

Our firm handles both child and spousal support matters, from prosecuting or defending initial support claims to prosecuting or defending petitions to modify (increase or decrease) existing support obligations, to enforcing or petitioning to terminate existing support orders. Our attorneys are trained to identify what is rightfully included and excluded in a support calculation, to assign appropriate “earning capacities” to the parties so that the support calculations are fair, and to argue that sometimes special circumstances warrant deviating (either upward or downward) from the support guideline that would otherwise apply in the case.

PROTECTION FROM DOMESTIC ABUSE

Our attorneys have successfully prosecuted and defended against petitions for protection from domestic abuse, often resulting in Protection From Abuse Orders being entered against the opposing party, disallowing a spouse to come within a certain distance of our client and requiring that spouse to relinquish all weapons to the police. We have also successfully defended clients who have been wrongly accused of domestic abuse. Our attorneys understand the importance and time-sensitivity of these matters, how these matters work through the criminal justice system, and how they affect our clients’ and their children’s lives.