Welcome to Spodek Law Group. Our goal is to give you the reality of international divorce in Manhattan - not the sanitized version other law firms present, not the procedural checklist fiction, but the actual truth about what happens when one spouse has ties to another country and the marriage falls apart.
Most people searching for an international divorce lawyer at 11pm think they're looking for someone who handles "complicated paperwork." They're wrong. International divorce is a jurisdiction race. A custody war fought with passports. A financial discovery nightmare where US subpoenas mean nothing the moment they cross a border. By the time you're reading this, the race may have already started without you.
Heres the uncomfortable truth that Todd Spodek tells every client who walks in with an international situation: the spouse who understands the rules wins. Not the spouse who is morally right. Not the parent who loves their children more. The one who understands that this is a system - a brutal, procedural, unforgiving system - and plays by its rules while fighting like hell within them. Kelly Rutherford was America's sympathetic mother. She still lost custody of her children to Monaco because she refused to return them as ordered. Being right doesn't protect you. Following the rules does.
The Jurisdiction Race You Didnt Know You Were In
Heres the thing nobody tells you about international divorce. While your still processing the emotional devastation of your marriage ending, your spouse may have spent months positioning themselves for legal advantage. This isn't paranoia. Its strategy.
Forum shopping is what divorce attorneys call it. Every sophisticated international family law practitioner does it. The goal is simple: file for divorce in the jurisdiction whose laws favor you. If your spouse is a citizen of a country with different alimony rules, different custody presumptions, different asset division formulas - they may already be establishing the connections needed to file there first.
Think about what this means practicaly. Your spouse starts "visiting family" more often. The kids go along. School records get transferred "temporarily." A bank account opens in that country "for convenience." Six months later, when they file for divorce in their home country, theyve established habitual residence. You get served papers in a langauge you dont speak, with a response deadline of 6 weeks, in a legal system you dont understand.
And heres were it gets brutal. Filing second doesnt just mean you lose some advantage. In many cases, filing second means you lose the war before it starts. The jurisdiction where divorce proceedings are first initiated often retains authority over custody, assets, everything. Your spouse's country. Their laws. Their language. Their courts.
OK so what does this mean for someone sitting in Manhattan right now? It means you need to understand wheather you should be racing to file, or wheather your spouse has already won that race and your strategy needs to pivot to contesting jurisdiction. Both scenarios require diferent approaches. Both require immediate action.
Passport Control: The Real Custody Battle
Before we talk about custody hearings and parenting plans, lets talk about what actualy determines whether you see your children. Passports.
Your childrens passports are the most important documents in your household right now. Whoever controls them controls where the children can travel. Whoever controls where they can travel controls where jurisdiction gets established. Whoever controls jurisdiction often controls the outcome.
If you dont know where your childrens passports are right now, stop reading and go find them.
Heres what happens when a spouse decides to play the passport game. They report the childrens US passports as "lost." Then they visit their home country's consulate and apply for new passports using the childrens dual citizenship. You never know these passports exist. One day your spouse takes the kids to "visit family" using documents you've never seen. Weeks later, your fighting a Hague Convention case you didnt even know was comming.
The Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas divorce showed this dynamic play out publicly. Within 20 days of Jonas filing for divorce in September 2023, Turner filed a Hague Convention petition alleging he was withholding the childrens passports. That's not coincidence. That's a mother who understood that passport control was the first battlefield. The case settled in mediation, but watch what she prioritized: not money, not property division, but passport access.
At Spodek Law Group, one of the first conversations we have with clients involves documenting and securing passport access. This isnt about being paranoid. Its about understanding the game your playing.
What Happened to Kelly Rutherford
Let that sink in for a moment because this case should terrify every parent in an international custody dispute.
Kelly Rutherford was famous. She was sympathetic. She was an American mother fighting to keep her American children in America. And she lost. Completly. The court gave custody to their father in Monaco and France, and when she tried to keep them in the US after a visit, the court ruled she posed a "strong risk of abduction" and stripped her of custody.
Read that again. The parent who tried to keep kids in thier home country was labled the abduction risk.
Heres how it happened. Rutherford's ex-husband Daniel Giersch had his US visa revoked in 2012. He was basicly deported - ordered to leave and barred from returning. Initially, the parents shared custody. But once Giersch couldnt enter the US, the court faced an impossible question: where should the children live?
The answer, eventualy, was Monaco. The childern were American citizens but the court determined that living abroad with thier father was in there best interests given the circumstances. Rutherford was given visiting time. She was supposed to bring them back after visits.
In August 2015, she didnt bring them back.
Maybe she thought the courts would understand. Maybe she thought being the American mother on American soil with American children would protect her. But heres the thing about international family law: courts HATE self-help. They despise parents who take matters into there own hands. Even when that parent has understandable, sympathetic reasons.
The court didnt see a protective mother. It saw a parent who violated a court order. It saw a flight risk. And it ruled accordingley.
This is what I mean when I say being right doesnt protect you. Rutherford may have been morally right - what mother wouldnt want her children in their home country? But the system doesnt care about moral rightness. It cares about procedural compliance. And the moment she refused to return those children, she handed her opponents the winning argument.
When "Habitual Residence" Becomes a Weapon
Now heres were things get technicaly complicated but stratgicaly simple.
The Hague Convention on Child Abduction - the primary treaty governing international custody disputes - centers on one concept: habitual residence. If a child is wrongfully removed from their habitual residence, the Convention provides a mechanisim to return them. Sounds straightforward.
Its not.
Habitual residence isnt about citizenship. Its not about where the child was born. Its about where they were actualy living, going to school, building their life. And that can shift.
So imagine this scenario. Your spouse takes the kids to visit grandparents in their home country. You agree - seems reasonable. The visit extends. The kids enroll in school "just temporarily." Months pass. Maybe a year. When you finaly realize something is wrong, your spouse argues the childrens habitual residence has shifted. They've been living there. Going to school there. Making friends there.
And heres the brutal irony. Your cooperation - your willingness to let the kids visit, your trust that this was temporary, your desire to not be the difficult parent - that cooperation is what established the new habitual residence. By the time you object, the clock has run.
The Hague Convention generaly requires petitions within one year of wrongful removal. After that, courts can find the child is "settled" in their new location and refuse to order return. One year. Thats your window.
Heres were the strategy comes in. Experienced international divorce attorneys look at these cases from the beginning with an eye toward how habitual residence is being established or manipulated. If you spouse is making moves - extended visits, school enrollments, bank account openings abroad - we need to understand what there positioning for and how to counter it.
Your Prenup Might Be Worthless
This one hurts. Becuase you did everything right.
Before you got married, you sat down with lawyers. You negotiated a prenuptial agreement. You spent tens of thousands of dollars getting it drafted, reviewed, executed properly. You thought you were protected.
But heres the thing about prenuptial agreements and international divorce: they dont travel well.
New York's public policy generaly favors enforcing prenuptial and postnuptial agreements. New York courts will uphold agreements that might be thrown out elsewhere. But if your divorce ends up being adjudicated in your spouse's home country? Different story.
Many civil law jurisdictions - thats most of Europe, Latin America, parts of Asia - have mandatory spousal support regimes that cant be contracted away. Your prenup says no alimony? Their courts might not care. Some countries dont recognize the concept of a prenuptial agreement limiting inheritance rights. Others wont enforce asset division terms that differ too much from their statutory default.
The 2024 case of Vyazemskaya v. Safin in Ontario shows courts are aware of "unfair forum-shopping tactics." But awareness doesnt mean protection. If your spouse established jurisdiction in their home country first, the battle over wheather your prenup applies is fought on their turf, under there rules.
This is another reason why the jurisdiction race matters so much. Its not just about custody. Its about which legal framework governs your entire financial unraveling.
Finding Money Your Spouse Hid Overseas
Let that sink in. A US subpoena served on a Swiss bank will be ignored. A subpoena to a Cayman Islands account? Worthless. Singapore? Jersey? Belize? Your discovery powers evaporate the moment they cross the border.
This is the uncomfortable truth about international asset discovery: if your spouse wanted to hide money, the tools are readily availible. Offshore accounts. Trusts in jurisdictions with banking secrecy. Assets transferred to family members abroad. Cryptocurrency in anonymous wallets.
OK so what CAN you do?
The Hague Evidence Convention provides a mechanism called Letters of Request, sometimes called letters rogatory. Your court asks a foreign court to compel disclosure. But this takes time - were talking 18 months or longer in some cases. And not every country participates enthusiasticaly.
FATCA - the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act - requires foreign banks to report information on US account holders. The Common Reporting Standard does something similar internationally. These have made hiding money harder. But harder isnt impossible. And these reporting requirements only catch accounts that are disclosed. Your spouse's "business partner" holding assets in their name? Not covered.
Forensic accountants become essential in these cases. They analyze tax returns, bank records, lifestyle expenditures. They look for gaps - money that should be somewhere but isnt. They trace transactions. But even the best forensic accountant cant find what they cant access, and international banking secrecy remains a real obstacle.
If you suspect your spouse is hiding assets overseas, you need to act BEFORE filing for divorce alerts them to start moving money.
The Hague Convention Isnt What You Think
Most parents assume the Hague Convention is comprehensive protection against international child abduction. Its not.
First, only 91 countries have signed the Convention. Thats alot, but look at who's missing. Japan only acceded recently and enforcement has been problematic. China is not a signatory. India is not a signatory. Most of the Middle East is not covered. If your spouse takes your children to a non-signatory country, you have no treaty remedy. Your options become diplomatic, not legal.
Second, the Hague Convention doesnt determine custody. Read that again becuase people misunderstand this constantly. The Convention is about returning children to their habitual residence so that THAT country's courts can determine custody. You might win the Hague case - get your children returned to Manhattan - and then still face a custody battle under New York law. Or if habitual residence was established abroad, winning means the kids go back there for custody determination.
Third, there are defenses. A parent accused of wrongfully removing children can argue the other parent consented. They can argue returning would expose the child to grave risk of harm. They can argue the child is now settled. These defenses are litigated vigorously.
The Sophie Turner case shows how Hague claims get weaponized. Turner filed a petition claiming Jonas wrongfully retained the children in the US. But was their habitual residence really England, given they'd been living in Florida? These factual disputes become the core of Hague litigation.
We handle both sides of Hague cases. Sometimes were helping a parent recover children taken abroad. Sometimes were defending against what we beleive is an improper Hague petition. The legal analysis is the same either way: where was habitual residence, was there wrongful removal or retention, do any defenses apply.
And heres another wrinkle most parents dont anticipate. Hague cases can be filed in federal court or state court. The choice matters enormously. Federal judges and state family court judges have completley different backgrounds. A federal judge might be comfortable with treaty interpretation but less familiar with custody nuances. A state family court judge might understand child welfare concerns intuitively but struggle with the technicalities of international law. Your attorney needs to know which venue gives you the best chance - and that analysis is specific to your case, your facts, your judge.
What Happens in the First 48 Hours
Heres the part nobody prepares you for. The speed.
International custody disputes move faster than you think possible. The Hague Convention is designed for prompt return of children - courts are supposed to act within six weeks of a petition being filed. Sophie Turner filed her Hague petition 20 days after Jonas filed for divorce. Twenty days.
If your spouse takes your children abroad and you beleive it constitutes wrongful removal, your window to act is narrow:
Day 1-3: Document everything. When did they leave? What did they tell you? What was the plan? Save texts, emails, anything showing the trip was supposed to be temporary.
Day 3-7: Emergency consultation with international family law counsel. Determine wheather a Hague petition is appropriate. Identify the Central Authority in both countries.
Week 2: File Hague petition or take other emergency action. The longer you wait, the more your spouse establishes "settlement" in the new location.
Ongoing: Do NOT violate any court orders. Do NOT take matters into your own hands. Remember Kelly Rutherford.
This timeline matters because habitual residence can shift. The more time passes with your children abroad, going to school there, making friends there, the stronger your spouse's argument that returning them would be disruptive. Every week you wait is a week working against you.
Notice the pattern here. In international divorce, delay is never neutral. Delay benefits whoever is building their position overseas.
What You Need to Do Monday Morning
The clock started when you typed "Manhattan international divorce lawyer" into your search bar. Maybe it started earlier. Maybe your spouse has been positioning for months while you were focused on saving the marriage. Either way, you dont have the luxury of waiting.
First, secure passport access. Locate your childrens US passports. Determine wheather they have or could obtain passports from another country. If your spouse is a dual citizen, assume thier home country would issue passports to your children.
Second, document your childrens current life. School records. Medical providers. Extracurriculars. Friends. Everything that proves Manhattan is their habitual residence and has been for years.
Third, review your financial exposure. Do you know where all the assets are? Does your spouse have family abroad who might be holding money? Were there "investments" or "business opportunities" overseas that might actualy be asset hiding?
Fourth, understand your prenuptial agreement's limitations. If you have one, have counsel review it with an eye toward international enforceability.
Fifth - and this is critical - dont tip your hand prematurely. If your spouse doesnt know your onto their jurisdiction strategy, you may have an opportunity to file first in Manhattan and establish New York as the proper forum.
The phone number is 212-300-5196. The consultation is confidential. And the sooner we understand your situation, the more options you'll have.
Spodek Law Group has handled international divorce cases involving dozens of countries. We understand the Hague Convention, forum selection strategy, and international asset discovery. More importantly, we understand that international divorce isnt about forms and procedures - its about strategy, timing, and understanding that one wrong move can cost you everything.
That window is closing. They had months to prepare. You have days to respond. Use them.
