It is easy to get attached to a pet, especially cats and dogs. They bring us comfort, keep us company, and become part of the family. But what happens to those pets when their owners split? Pets are personal property When a relationship goes south, figuring out who gets to keep the pets can become a contentious fight and often pets are used as a bargaining chip in divorces. State laws, including North Carolina, consider pets as personal property, just like the sofa or dining room furniture. However, unlike inanimate… Read More
Ward Family Law Group is pleased to announce that once again Attorney Dale Stephenson is recognized in the fourth edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America™ for her high caliber work in Family Law. Best Lawyers released their 2024 recognitions publicly on August 17, 2023. This recognition acknowledges her outstanding reputation as an attorney and advocate, and we are extremely proud of Dale’s accomplishment and her continued dedication to her clients and the profession. Best Lawyers has been regarded by lawyers and the public for more than 40 years as the… Read More
On Thursday, May 18, 2023, Wake County District Court Judge Ashleigh P. Dunston presented a motion in open court for Dale’s admittance, along with select attorneys of the Wake County Bar, to the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice Roberts granted Judge Dunston’s motion, officially granting Dale admittance to practice law before the highest court in America. Not only was May 18, 2023, a significant milestone in Dale’s legal career, it was also a special day for the Court. Prior to issuing the opinions of six landmark cases,… Read More
Ward Family Law Group is pleased to announce the addition of Ryan Tarrant to the Wake County Parenting coordinator list. Ryan is currently accepting appointments as a Parenting Coordinator in Wake County. Ryan Tarrant earned his law degree from Campbell University’s Norman Adrian Wiggins School of law and is certified by the State Bar of North Carolina as a specialist in Family Law. He trained as a parenting coordinator through The Center for Cooperative Parenting, Inc. Ryan’s current hourly rate as a Parenting Coordinator is currently $150.00. To read more… Read More
Thanks to the readers of Wake Living Magazine for naming Linda Ward as BEST ATTORNEY. It is an honor to be recognized. Thank you!
Beginning Monday, April 17th we will have new office hours. We hope the earlier opening will be more convenient to our clients and allow us to provide better service to you.
We are proud to announce that attorneys Linda Ward and Dale Stephenson have been selected to the Business North Carolina 2023 list of Legal Elite in Family Law. Lawyers on this list are nominated and chosen by their peers who think they are the state’s best practitioners in their field. Only 3% of practicing attorneys in North Carolina were selected as Legal Elite for this 2023 list. Congratulations to Linda and Dale! We are extremely proud of their continued dedication to their clients and the profession. Ward Family Law Group… Read More
The state of North Carolina plans to invest over $100 million over the next ten years to convert its current court filing systems from paper filings to efilings. Wake County is one of four counties in the state to be part of a pilot program for this new eCourts system. The others are Harnett, Johnston, and Lee Counties. This “eCourts” portal is to be available in all 100 counties across the state by 2025. What is eCourts? Essentially, the eCourts portal is the Courthouse Clerk’s Office online. Beginning February 13,… Read More
In Part 1, we discussed the use of AirTags to track your spouse and children and the implications in divorce and custody cases. Now you might be wondering, what can I do to protect myself or my child from being tracked? Manufacturers have taken steps to improve Security. The success of these trackers is based off their proximity to other devices they can ping off, and they can only ping off devices with Bluetooth turned on. Location data and the identity of the pinged devices are not stored in the… Read More
AirTags and other Bluetooth trackers, like Life360’s Tile, are coin-sized tracking devices. Using a Bluetooth signal, an AirTag pings off any Apple device using Apple’s Find My network and shows you the location of the AirTag. When out of range of the tracker, Tile’s app will show you the last location it was seen by your device and can ping off other Tile users to locate its current location. The benefit of these trackers is that they are small enough to go undetected and they are inexpensive. In fact, the… Read More
