Here are some examples of the results Mark has helped his clients get over the years. Please remember, each divorce-related case is different, and Mark can’t guarantee these same results in your case:

• Mark helped his first divorce client keep the family home in exchange for her share of her husband’s firefighter pension plan. She got to keep her own pension plan through her work. She also kept most of the family furniture and furnishings, got custody of their minor daughter, and received child support and spousal support from her husband. Her house is now worth considerably more than it was at their divorce, and she is still happily living in it.
  
  
• A client’s husband threatened to take her house and leave her with nothing. Mark helped her keep her home, in exchange for her share of her husband’s retirement plan which he had cashed out and put in a bank account. Mark was able to subpoena the man’s bank records to find out exactly how much his client was entitled to. Mark was also able to help her get spousal support from her husband, despite the fact he had retired from work and had a relatively low income.
  
  
• A husband of Mark’s client left her for another woman. Her husband had told her that since he had earned everything, it was all his. In spite of his claims, Mark helped her get her fair monetary share of the family home, custody of their daughter, child support, spousal support, the family SUV, reimbursement for her share of one of the family vehicles that her husband had sold after separation and before the divorce was final, and her proper monetary share of the family furnishings and furniture.
  
  
• Mark helped a client who was accused of domestic violence and drug abuse - and was thus only able to see his daughter during supervised visits—get visits with his daughter reinstated, so that he was able to see her every other weekend from Friday evening until Sunday evening.
  
  
• A female client’s ex-husband filed a motion for contempt against her, which carried possible penalties of jail time, fines, and attorney fees if the judge ruled against her. He also wanted to enforce an agreement that would have had their young son live with him instead of her, which she desperately didn’t want to happen. Mark helped his client file a counter-motion against the ex-husband for contempt, because the ex hadn’t been paying his full court-ordered child support. This ultimately resulted in the parties agreeing that the contempt against Mark’s client would be dismissed in return for dismissing the contempt against the ex-husband. The ex also paid the overdue back child support. Finally, the parties also agreed in settlement negotiations that their son would continue to live with Mark’s client. She was happy with the outcome.
  
  
• A male client wanted to get his spousal support obligation to his wife reduced. Mark filed a motion for a reduction in spousal support, and also asked for child support for his client, since the parties’ son was living with him almost full-time. Mark fought to get income imputed to the former wife, saying she wasn’t working as much as she was capable of working, and the court agreed to impute a full forty hour work week to the ex-wife, so that she would have to pay more to Mark’s client for child support, and possibly get less money in spousal support. Mark also argued that the wife was able to support herself, since assets she owned had increased greatly since the parties’ divorce. The parties settled their case on the day they went to court, and Mark’s client got an immediate reduction of over $1,000 per month in the support he was paying his wife. Mark also helped his client get a date in the near future when his duty to pay spousal support to his ex-wife would end completely. His client was pleased to have an end date for his support duty, and he was happy to have an extra thousand dollars each month to spend the way he wanted to.
  
  
• Client's wife left him after a short marriage, and then, in the divorce process, she tried to keep his share of their home they had purchased together during the marriage. She claimed that the house was all hers, and that the client hadn't contributed anything to its purchase, and that since her name was the only one on the title to the home, it was hers alone. Her previous best settlement offer to the client was to propose giving him only $18,000 for his entire community property interest in the home. This was not a fair offer for the client, because the home had gone up considerably in value since they bought it. This offer was made to the client's first attorney, and that attorney urged him to accept the offer. The client fired her and hired Mark. Mark took the wife's deposition, which gave him the opportunity to closely question the wife under oath, and in the deposition, the wife literally reversed her position about whether the client had any ownership interest in the house, and agreed to give Mark's client his share of the equity in the home. She did this because she was confronted at the deposition with evidence that the client did indeed own half of the house, and she buckled under the pressure of Mark's questioning. The client ended up being awarded over $74,000 for his equity interest in the home. The client was happy with this result.
  
  
• Client's wife left him after a long marriage. The client had a larger income than his wife, had a substantially larger 401(k) account than she did, and the parties owned a house together which had some equity value, along with some furniture, automobiles, and some credit card and other debts. They also had a teenage daughter. Mark's client's daughter lived with the client after he and his wife separated, so Mark filed a motion asking that his client get sole physical custody of their daughter, citing the wife's neglect of their daughter, and also asking that wife pay the client child support. To avoid having to go to court, the wife decided to settle the case by agreeing to let the client buy her interest in the home with a small lump sum payment to her, and client's agreement not to seek child support from her before their daughter turned 18. The client also agreed to pay all of the community debt. Under the agreement, he got to keep the house, he got sole physical custody of their daughter, he didn't have to pay his wife any spousal support, despite his greater income and the fact that theirs was a long marriage, and the parties agreed that each would get to keep their own 401(k) accounts. This saved the client a considerable amount of money he would have had to otherwise pay the wife for spousal support and for her share of his 401(k) account. While the client was not happy to be getting a divorce, he was pleased with way the divorce settlement worked out for him.
  
  
• Mark took on a client who had been divorced for years, and was still paying spousal support to his former wife, despite the fact that she was now making more money than he was. The client had tried to get his wife to agree to allow him to stop having to pay the support, but he wasn't having any luck, so he hired Mark. Mark filed a motion for the client, asking that his former wife be ordered to start paying him spousal support, since her income was now greater than his. This was done to put pressure on the wife, with the goal of getting her to agree to drop the spousal support he was forced to pay her each month. The motion was served on the wife, and then Mark contacted her and negotiated a settlement of the support issue, which included on order that Mark's client's spousal support obligation was ended, and the client was relieved of his duty to pay his former wife the back spousal support that had accumulated before the agreement was reached, which was about $1,800. Client's monthly income wasn't very much, so he was grateful to be saving $218 per month in spousal support payments that he was obligated to pay his former wife until Mark helped him cancel that obligation.
  
  
• A woman was referred to Mark who was in the process of divorcing her husband. She had fired her first attorney, because she wasn't getting the assistance she wanted. The client had a daughter with her husband, and during one of the visitation exchanges, husband had attacked the client and hit her repeatedly. Bystanders had stopped the attack, and the police arrested the husband. Husband was taken to jail, and ended up losing his job over the attack on his wife. After the woman hired Mark, he helped her with the divorce process, and he also filed a lawsuit against the husband on the client's behalf for the husband's attack on her. The husband agreed to settle that case for the amount of $13,500, and paid the client this amount. While no amount of money can fully make up for being physically attacked by a former loved one, the client was satisfied that her former husband had to pay her this amount of money as compensation for what he had done to her.

Mark has also handled other types of cases over the years. Here are the results of some of those cases. Please remember that, again, Mark doesn’t guarantee the same type of result in your case, if you have a case not related to divorce, and that these are just examples of the work Mark has done as a lawyer:

• Mark’s client had been hit nearly head-on by a truck while she was driving home, but suffered no broken bones, and no discernable internal head injuries. She left the hospital just hours after being admitted, but later sought treatment for pain and other problems with her head, back, shoulder, knees, and other parts of her body. Mark took her case to trial, and after he presented over fifteen witnesses on his client’s behalf, the jury awarded his client over $179,000 in damages.
  
  
• A client was forced to jump out of a second story window because the house she was living in caught fire. She sustained injuries to her right arm and her legs in the fall. The landlord’s insurance company initially said it wasn’t their fault, and that they wouldn’t pay anything. Mark filed suit against the landlord, and also sued the contractor who improperly installed the water heater which caused the fire. The case eventually settled for $300,000, in favor of Mark’s client.
  
  
• A client of Mark’s was hit by a taxi-cab while walking across the street in the cross-walk. He suffered no broken bones, and was released shortly after being admitted to the hospital, but he did have problems with headaches, his memory, back problems, and knee problems. Mark helped his client get an award of $67,000 at arbitration, which the opposing side accepted.
  
  
• Another client slipped and fell at her grocery store, and had to have a knee operation to correct the resulting damage. Mark helped her get a $30,000 settlement from the store’s insurance company.
  
  
• A meter-maid client of Mark’s was attacked by a woman while she was giving the woman a parking ticket. She punched Mark’s client once in the chest and tore the ticket up. Mark’s client had to transfer jobs with the city because of the trauma of being attacked on the job. Mark helped his client settle the case for $25,000.
  
  
• A client was cheated in a car lease deal. Mark filed suit and tried to settle the case, but the other side refused, so the case went to trial. The trial resulted in a mistrial because the other side did some improper things, and before the new trial, the case settled for $27,000. Ironically for the opposing side, Mark’s client would have accepted far less than that as settlement when the case first started, if they had agreed to be fair.
  
  
• Mark had a criminal defense client who was accused of aggravated battery for beating a man with a heavy flashlight. The man was stealing the client’s property in the middle of the night. Mark defended his client at trial, and was able to get an acquittal from the jury, with the jury ruling unanimously in his client’s favor that he had acted in self-defense. This saved the client from serving up to a year in jail.