About Us

• Jessica L. Sterle represents clients throughout Northeastern Minnesota in the following areas:
  
  PREMARITAL AGREEMENTS
  An agreement a couple agrees to before marriage stating how the parties' money, debts, property and assets must be divided should the parties ever divorce. Premarital agreements are also knows as antenuptial agreements or pre-nups.
  
  DIVORCE
  Also known as marital dissolution, divorce is a court proceeding to legally end a marriage. It can include a court hearing to decide temporary relief of various issues in the early stage of proceedings. Ultimately, the parties must either agree on their own or have a judge decide how the parties shall permanently provide for care and access of marital children (custody and visitation), who must pay child support and how much, who must pay alimony (otherwise known as spousal maintenance), if any, how to divide marital property (debts, personal property, vehicles) and name change, if any.
  
  
  LEGAL SEPARATION
  A legal separation involves all of the issues in a divorce except the marriage is not dissolved. The couple remains married until the parties go through the divorce proceeding. Should the parties wish to divorce, the terms of the legal separation are put aside and all the issues of legal and physical custody of the children, spousal maintenance, division of debts and so on, must be resolved.
  
  CHILD CUSTODY
  Legal and physical custody must be determined for the children. Initially a custody determination is based upon the "best interests of the child," which is an examination of 13 factors set forth in Minnesota law. If custody was established in the past, then custody can only be changed by written agreement or by showing physical or emotional harm or endangerment to the child under the current arrangement.
  
  VISITATION ISSUES
  Minnesota law gives every parent the right to see and spend time with his or her children. Sometimes parents have difficulty arranging when the parents are going to have time with their children during the school year and during summer break. Holidays can be particularly difficult. As children grow older, the visitation schedule parents created no longer works so it may need to be changed.
  
  CHILD SUPPORT
  Child support is the money the non-custodial parent, known as the obligor, must pay to support his or her children. This child support is paid to the obligee, or custodial parent. The amount of child support an obligor must pay is based upon each parties' financial situation, but key is the net monthly income of the obligor. It may be possible to modify a prior child support order if the obligor's financial situation has changed "substantially", meaning his or her finances have had a change to cause a 20% change in ongoing support.
  
  Tied into the issue of child support is also issues of medical support for the children including health insurance coverage, if any, as well as whom is responsible for any unreimbursed health and medical expenses for the children, such as braces or glasses.
  
  PATERNITY
  This is a legal process to establish the biological father of a minor child. Paternity is an issue when a child is born to parents who are not married. Mother or father may initiate a paternity action. Paternity is usually settled at the child's birth when mother and father sign a Minnesota Recognition of Parentage form. The parties may submit to a paternity test generally at their own expense.