I am in support of this bill for the following reasons: Talking points. Alleviate the financial burden and sometimes financial devastation for the parties; particularly for the low wage earning spouse or the non working spouse. Fault based divorces may cause a breakdown in co-parenting and a breakdown in the family unit. Even though the family unit is dissolved legally, the family unit is still intact if there are children and grandchildren involved. Such allegations of a fault-based divorce are public record and can cause extreme embarrassment for the parties and if the parties have children, for the children as well. The embarrassment can be felt throughout the family structure and within society and professionally. When proving fault-based allegations such as cruelty, apprehension of bodily hurt, etc. exhibits/testimony are used. Examples of this may be inappropriate text messages, photos, allegations of abuse, even though not proven, which are all a part of a public record. Parties should be permitted to divorce without depleting their retirement and savings and leave their dignity intact. I've been practicing law since 2005 and I would say that in my experience, 85% of the divorces that are filed on fault based are granted a NO fault divorce. In addition, emotions run extremely high during the divorce process. The process of gathering evidence and proving fault-based divorces can lead to unsafe situations for a spouse which can include domestic violence and death. Thank you for your consideration, Shannon D. Lemm

Thank you for working to move this bill forward. I support HB 273 and hope this will pass. Our current standard 1 year waiting period for divorce serves to hold the financially disadvantaged party, most frequently the woman, in unhealthy, dangerous and abusive situations. It increases the overall cost of divorce for everyone and often leads to mothers being forced to accept unreasonable terms of settlement from their abuser as they cannot financially sustain the very expensive divorce process for a full year. Virginia is one of the most difficult states for women to get out of abusive marriages safely and eliminating this artificially extended waiting period is a good first step to improving the situation.