As expected, TLC reality star Kate Gosselin filed for divorce from her husband of ten years, Jon Gosselin this week in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (Personal aside: My dad lives in Montgomery County! The Gosselins live in neighboring Berks County but filed in Montgomery. I didn’t realize he lived so close to “Jon and Kate Plus Eight”.) While Kate filed the complaint to initiate the divorce, she told People magazine that Jon wanted the divorce for quite some time and actually hired an attorney first.

Jon hired Philadelphia divorce attorney Charles J. Meyer even prior to the filing. Meyer is listed in the paperwork, indicating that attorneys for both parties were at least in touch with one another prior to heading to the courthouse. The choice of filing in a neighboring county (possibly in a failed attempt to throw off the media?) was, in fact, agreed upon by attorneys beforehand according to the Complaint (a copy of which can be found at TMZ.com).

The media initially jumped on one statement in the Complaint and completely misconstrued it. In seeking a no-fault divorce, Kate pleaded that the marriage was irretrievably broken. She also pleaded that, at the time of any hearing of the divorce, she would submit an affidavit showing that she and Jon had lived apart for two years. Initial reports reported that she claimed that they had been separated for two years prior to the filing of the divorce complaint.

This was clearly wrong. Pennsylvania has two procedural avenues to obtain a no-fault divorce – one is to claim that the marriage is irretrievably broken and have both parties agree to that fact; the other way is to claim an irretrievably broken marriage and a two-year separation. If forced to use that option, Kate would have to wait for two years to finalize the divorce.

Kate’s complaint merely puts both options on the table in the event there would be no agreement that the marriage was un-fixable. Seems like boilerplate language to me. Nothing worthy of the media uproar it caused.

Further review of the divorce complaint reveals nothing other than they haven’t yet agreed to a financial settlement. The former couple has reportedly agreed, at least on a temporary basis, to trade off spending time with their eight children in their new home. I’ve never seen an arrangement like that work for the long-term – so I anticipate that ultimately a more traditional custody arrangement will be reached.

TLC has placed the show on hiatus for the summer so that the family can handle these personal issues.

Meyer also currently represents Philadelphia 76ers player Andre Iguodala in a child support case. Kate hired local Montgomery County family law attorney Cheryl Young.

Also See:

Possible Jon & Kate Divorce Could Be Very Complicated