As I noted in this post, New York now has “no fault” divorce permitting the court to award a divorce based on one spouse’s sworn statement that the marriage has been “irretrievably broken” for at least the prior six (6) months prior to the commencement of the divorce.  So what exactly does it mean for [...]

Happy Friday!  Last week, I stumbled across Rusty Rumley’s powerpoint presentation on “Agricultural Contracts and the Leasing of Land.”  Rusty does a great job giving an overview of the building blocks.  He’s a great teacher — he was one of my instructors in this agriculture law course last year– and I suggest looking at his [...]

Okay, so it’s not the most exciting New Year’s Resolution but it may be a whole lot more doable than dropping 30 pounds in 2012.  On page 5 of this month’s Grassroots newspaper by New York Farm Bureau (“NYFB”) includes a nice submission by A. Edward Staehr of NY FarmNet about coping with a disaster [...]

The National Agriculture Law Center has reported that approximately 90% of agricultural operations do not survive the transition to the next generation.  I have to say- that statistic is a bit alarming.  The primary reason for this is poor succession planning.  Estate planning is just one part of workable succession plan.  Estate planning focuses on [...]