Becky,
Please, think long and hard about the children angle. Do you wish to send them to university? If so, would you be content with the universities in the DR? Check them out before answering, please. I did and decided not for my young twins. And once we decided that we wanted to send them to university outside the DR -- in our case, the US -- we realized that we should return them to the US school system. Yes, there are decent middle and high schools in the DR, but they cost alot, whereas back in Fairfax County Virginia we could get good or better free....
Grahame, HB and Ken are spot-on about the difficulty of you finding any meaningful work as a lawyer in the DR. You would probably have to read law in the DR first. And definitely have not just good Spanish, but good legal Spanish (which many schools outside Spanish-speaking nations don't teach)...
I think Grahame's (Bushbaby) figures on your husband's possible initial months earnings may be conservative -- if he already has experience and a rep and clientele and is a go-getter, he might be able to do better.
But, as someone who tried for four years to conduct his consulting/writing business by internet, phone and fax from the DR, let me advise him that there are drawbacks to doing it in the DR. As HB says, it can be done, but it's not as easy as one might suppose. For example, on the expense side, if you live by the computer, you must, repeat, must, invest in a a good back-up, an inverter and very good surge protection for both electrical and phone lines. You also should join a mail service such as Business Mail or EPS. Another: there are potential clients in major markets (North America, Europe) in some professions that are more skeptical of hiring you if you are based in a third world country, so you will have to go the extra mile in marketing time and expense...
Neither Grahame nor HB have mentioned a big issue for someone with kids your age: a maid/nanny. If you both are going to work, you'll need one. The DR is not set up to be convenient for a two-wage earner family. The expense of having a maid/nanny may not seem high, but it's not the only consideration. You have to find one competent, and one you can trust leaving your kids with -- not as easy as it sounds! Take it from someone who went through 8 of them in just one year, until we found the right one! And my wife is Dominican and we had Dominican friends and family trying to help us find a suitable maid!
This may be stuff you don't want to hear, but you should, so that when you made your decision, you do so fully informed and factoring these things into it.
Good luck to you!
Regards,
Keith