When any couple is going through divorce proceedings the work their family lawyer has to do will very much depend on whether the couple in question are able to agree on the terms of their divorce, or whether they cannot agree, and then the family court has to make the decisions for them. If it is the former scenario then a family lawyer will merely need to draw up the divorce agreement and send it for approval by the family court.

If agreement cannot be reached, then there are several areas of dispute which might exist. The most common are arrangements for any children of the two parents who are divorcing, and the property settlement where the assets and liabilities are divided. There is another area of dispute that is one which does not normally hit the headlines but when it occurs can cause more friction between a divorcing couple than any other, and that is who gets to keep the family pet or pets.

For anyone who has never owned a pet having just read that last sentence, your eyebrows might be raised in astonishment that a pet could cause such problems during a divorce process, however, as any pet owner will tell you, emotional attachments to pets can be very strong. The mere thought that an ex-spouse or partner will take that pet away from them, can induce a person to fight as hard as possible to prevent that from happening.