Retirement and Maintenance

By Attorney Gregg Herman
June 11, 2014

The Wisconsin Law Journal just published my column on the Brin v. Brin case.

As I said in my initial post on this case, while I agree with the CA decision, it really isn’t much help. The court affirms the decision of Judge Rosa, which is the correct ruling. Judge Rosa is a thoughtful, highly intelligent judge and consistent with these attributes, made a well considered decision.

The problem is that few maintenance payers wait until they are 79 years old and are 12 years past retirement before asking for termination of payments. Also, few recipients have $2.5 million in assets. So the facts of this case will be easily distinguishable from just about every other case.

Two last notes: First, tomorrow will be thirty days from this decision and no petition for review has been filed. Second, as I said in my initial post, this is the first CA opinion recommend for publication since November 5, 2013 and only the second in the last year. None have come down since – or seem to be in the hopper in the immediate future.

While this makes life more interesting for divorce lawyers like me, they make it more stressful (and expensive) for our clients.

Attorney Gregg Herman is a founding partner of Loeb & Herman, LLC in Milwaukee, WI. He practices family law exclusively, and can be reached via e-mail or by calling (414) 272-5632.