New ground for divorce starts today

If you've been following the news, you may remember that October 1, the majority of the new laws in Maryland took effect.  Today being the first day courts are open after the change, you can now file for divorce based on a one year separation, ie, without the necessity of proving that the separation was voluntary.  As a pratical matter, this isn't a gound-breaking change in the law.  You still need to be actually separated (tight budgets and child-related disputes make this difficult).  Another practical limitation is that you still need to either work out the issues like finances, property and custody OR additionally wait for the litigation process to conclude, which can take many months more.  Still, given other legislation proposed this past term, it could be we are making small steps towards being more of a true "no-fault" divorce state.