International Divorce Attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Nancy Zalusky Berg and Ruta Johnsen discuss the issues that arise in international divorce cases.

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Nancy: You know, Minnesota has, I believe it is, 10 of the Forbes top 500 multinational corporations. We have the Mayo Clinic. We have enormous populations of people from all over the world. The Hmong population, Hispanic, Indian, huge populations. So, the issues that arise when you have cross-order marriage or, say, somebody’s a Hindu who marries somebody who’s Norwegian, they’re gonna have all kinds of issues that arise out of that marriage.

But also issues related to what happens when the children are born, what happens if somebody takes a child and holds over. Do you have remedies to get the child back? And so this is really been quite a growth area for us, is this focus on international issues. I’m president of the international academy – I’m sorry. I’m president of the International Family – what is the name of my organization? IAFL. International Academy of Family Law. I am president of the International Academy of Family Law.

Which means I know a lawyer just about everywhere in the world that I’ve had dinner with, that I have relatively significant relationship with, and that I can call, and who speaks excellent English – that I can call with regard to any question, whether it’s about the enforcement of a decree in Italy, South Africa, Hong Kong. I’ve got relationships in all of those places so that I can help a client address concerns that might arise outside of the United States.
Ruda works with me on a lot of this stuff because Ruda really understands the experience of coming to the United States and becoming a citizen. While she certainly doesn’t hold herself out as an expert in immigration law, having gone through the process of immigration, she’s immensely helpful and empathetic with our clients as they go through this client.

We also can use similar laws in the US for enforcement of return of children, right?

Ruta: That’s correct. Minnesota’s one of the states that is ______ to the UCCJEA, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act, or UCCJEA which is much easier. UCCJEA helps the courts decide what state has jurisdiction to decide or enforce child custody.

Minneapolis, MN family law attorneys Nancy Zalusky Berg and Ruta Johnsen talk about various issues that arise in international family law cases.

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