How To Start A Divorce In Santa Clarita

There are two parties to a divorce.  The person who initially files for divorce to get the case started is called the Petitioner.  The other party who is served the divorce papers is called the Respondent.  Watch our video on how to prepare the divorce petition.

Note that the party names are different in a family law matter than a typical lawsuit.  In traditional lawsuits, the parties are referred to as Plaintiff and Defendant.

The Courts do not give any preference to one party or the other.  The Respondent has just as many rights and legal standing and either party can avail themselves of any legal steps.

When you want to file for divorce, the Petitioner will need to prepare the appropriate divorce documents and file them with the court.  Then you need to serve the petition on your spouse.  Filing of the initial paperwork notifies the court and other party of your desire to get divorced.

When you serve the Petition to divorce, a couple of important things happen.

First, the service of the divorce petition starts the clock on the 6 month waiting period in California.  Second, the petition helps to determine a date of separation.  Third is that automatic retraining orders take effect upon service of the Petition, (known as ATRO’s).

Of course, there is always the downsides of serving the divorce papers.  There is always going to be some upset upon being served with divorce papers.  It is important that you try to soften the blow by advising your spouse that there are some divorce papers they can expect.  There are also some alternative methods of serving your spouse that are less stressful which can be used instead of hiring a process server.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firms that specializes in the divorce process.  Please give us a call for more information about our services.

Santa Clarita Divorce | Consult But Don’t Retain A Lawyer

As a proponent of doing your own divorce, I am always glad to find someone who shares my thoughts on the issues of divorce.  To do your own divorce means to NOT retain an attorney.

There are a few reasons to retain a divorce attorney.  Simply because you are getting divorced is not reason enough to retain an attorney

What does it mean to “retain” an attorney?  When you retain an attorney, you are giving that attorney to act on your behalf.  Because the legal system is an adversary system, getting an attorney involved almost always causes more trouble and raises the level of  conflict in the divorce.

So what we argue is that you do not need to retain a lawyer, but use them on a consultative basis when you have questions about your legal rights during the divorce process.  You can continue to meet with and consult divorce attorneys without having to retain them.

Divorce attorneys do not want you to know this.  They want you to retain them so they can rack up the fees and charge you for every step of the way.

When you use an attorney on a consultation basis, you maintain control of what happens during the divorce process and can ensure that it does not go off the rails.

There are two ways you can view attorneys and how they work.  First, you have to understand that when you hire them, they are going to do whatever it takes to win and represent your best interest.  They have to, otherwise risk a possible malpractice suit which means sometimes doing things in their best interest and not yours.

But on the other end, doesn’t this seem a little convenient?  I mean, to represent your best interest, they have to act in a way that can complicate your case and make it worse instead of better.  The more trouble you have, the more money the attorney makes.

Do you think this is an incentive for them to keep things simple?

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process.  We are a neutral third party who’s only purpose is to get your through the divorce process.  Please give us a call for more information about our services.

 

Attorney’s Say Do Your Own Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

I do a lot of reading about divorce, especially the self help divorce books, books about marriage and the like in order to better understand the process and keep up to date with changing laws, etc.

I also read these books for fodder for my blog articles, such as this one.

That said, every book I read is typically written by a lawyer.  And what I find in these self help divorce type books is that every one of them says that you should do your own divorce and not use an attorney.

The current book I am reading on page 1, chapter one starts off with the heading, “Can you do your own divorce?  Should You?”  Followed by bold capital letters, “YES!  YOU CAN!”

As a legal document preparation firm that specializes in divorce, I find it a bit of fresh air that there are attorneys out there that realize that they are unnecessary in the divorce process in most cases.

It is true that over 60% of California divorces are now done without either side being represented by an attorney.  This saves California divorcing families between 500 million and a billion dollars every year in unnecessary legal fees.

In fact, this book encourages you to do your own divorce.  Reasons given to do your own divorce are that by taking charge of your own divorce case will lead to a smoother, faster, less painful and less expensive divorce experience.

Here is a quote right from the book:

Most people would be better off if they reduced or eliminated their use of attorneys, because the legal process and the way attorneys work in it tends to cause trouble, raise the level of conflict, and greatly increase your expense. (“How to do your own divorce in California” NOLO Press)

There are attorneys out there that are willing to put it in writing that you can and should do your own divorce.  And when you do decided to do your own divorce, you should make sure to use the professional services of a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service like us to make sure you get your divorce documents done correctly so you can move on with your life.

Please give us a call for more information about our divorce self help services.

Telling Your Spouse You Want A Divorce | Santa Clarita

Once you decide you want to get divorced, how do you go about telling your spouse and when should you do it.  There is probably not any one-size-fits-all answer.  But sooner versus later is probably sound advice.

Besides, if you are trying to decide when to tell your spouse you want a divorce, then things have probably been kind of rocky for a while.  Perhaps your spouse already knows, is expecting it or thinking of doing exactly the same thing.

When and how you decide to tell your spouse you want a divorce is a personal decision that only you can make.  But when you do get around to it, it is important to sit down with them and work towards a compromise so that your divorce can be as amicable as possible.

It would be a good idea to come up with a plan on how your want to deliver your message and perhaps make some notes about what you want to discuss.  In addition, try to do it with respect for the other party and take the high road to divorce.

Unless there is some concern of violence or other issues that could arise from breaking the news, this is probably one of those occasions where writing an email, sending a text or leaving a voice mail is probably not your best option.

Making the decision to finally tell your spouse that you want to get divorced is hard.  Even if you have decided a while ago.  Telling your spouse brings about the reality that you are actually going through with it and that it is no longer a questions or contemplation.

Communication throughout the divorce process will be essential to ensure that it ends amicably.  Make sure you start off right by advising your spouse in an appropriate manner that will hopefully set the tone for the remainder of the divorce process.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process.  We serve all of Los Angeles County.

An Open Letter From A Santa Clarita Divorce Lawyer

Okay, so shame on me for changing the title of this letter that was not written from a Santa Clarita divorce lawyer.  Admittedly, I changed the title to gain some search engine help to localize the article.

That said, I wanted to share with you, what has been titled, “Open Letter From A Divorce Lawyer.”  I read the entire letter and it casts an interesting light of how divorce lawyers may think about the divorce process, their job and their clients.

I have to admit, having worked at a law firms for some time, that many of these words are truisms.

The the letter is written from a “divorce lawyer” to their client in such a way as to shed some light on the practice of law, perhaps, and that of divorce.

I think it is an interesting read and thus have included it below.  I hope you enjoy it.

Dear client:

I am pleased that you have hired me to represent you in your divorce. I’m pleased because I need the money you and others like you pay me. I’m tired of working with people like you who are always fighting and never happy, and often unhappy with me, but I feel trapped now and don’t know how I could change my practice at this point in my career without a huge financial setback, so I hang on and do the best job I can, the best way I know, for clients like you.

If you’re like most people going through divorce, you’ve heard a chorus of voices — from your mother to your neighbor to the person who cuts your hair — warning that you better get a mean “junkyard dog” lawyer. I don’t like being a junkyard dog lawyer, and I don’t think it would be in your best interest for me to be, but I have to give you the impression early on that I am so you will hire me. I don’t like doing it, but you demand it, so I do it.

That means that when we met in our first consultation, I talked about how experienced I am. I gave you an optimistic assessment of what you would give up and what you would get working with me. If your spouse had come the same day instead of you and presented the very same facts, I would have given your spouse an equally optimistic assessment from their perspective. I learned long ago not to lose any sleep about doing this. You demand it, and I’m going to give it to you so you will hire me.

You can see what happened now, can’t you? I gave you an optimistic assessment of your case from your perspective, then one of my colleagues gave your spouse an optimistic assessment of the case from your spouse’s perspective. Together, we worked knowingly or unknowingly  to convince both of you that the other is being unreasonable and that you each needed us to win you a better deal.

I told you in our initial consultation that you should avoid communicating directly with your spouse about anything other than parenting of your children. I did this because nothing is so important to me as client control. I want to be the gatekeeper of all communications between you and your spouse, so I can decide how much information to provide to you and what “spin” to put on it. This will make you and your spouse more suspicious of each other, and it will make you more dependent on me. I like that, at least in the early stages of divorce negotiations.

I required you to pay a large retainer when you hired me. I told you that I have a fixed retainer for all divorce clients, or I may have told you that I set your retainer after carefully considering the complexity of your case, the time I expect to put in, and the risk that my estimates might be too low. In reality, though, my technique for setting your retainer was far simpler:  I charged the highest retainer I thought I could get. The reason I did this is that the retainer is often the only money I ever see for representing someone in a divorce case. I may try to bill you and get paid later, but many of my clients don’t pay me anything after the initial retainer, even though they owe me a great deal of money, and I hesitate to sue them for fear they will counterclaim for malpractice and drive up my insurance premiums. The fact that I have so much trouble getting clients like you to pay me what they owe me is another reason my work is so unpleasant for me.

I also will work to appear successful. I may drive a luxury car and maintain a sumptuous office, because I want you and my colleagues — especially my colleagues — to believe that I am earning lots of money. In one sense, I am earning lots of money. I charge a high hourly rate, and I have a great deal of business, so I have high billings. I also have a high overhead, however, and I have trouble getting paid. In reality, I have financial struggles just like you do.

There’s more than a 93% chance that your case will settle before trial. Nevertheless, I will prepare your case as if you were going to trial. This will be wasteful and expensive. I will conduct lengthy discovery, including interrogatories, requests for the production of documents, and depositions, charging you a great deal of money to prepare documents that I simply have printed from my word processor with minor changes.

I will do this not because it’s in your best interest but because I’m afraid of being embarrassed in front of other lawyers and judges and because I’m afraid you will sue me. The result is that you and/or your spouse will spend a great deal of money preparing for a trial we know will almost certainly not occur. I’ve heard that much of this could be avoided by simply exchanging documents and affidavits, but that’s not what I’m used to doing. If there’s a better way, I don’t know it, and even if I knew it, I probably wouldn’t do it. The way I practice law is what I know and understand, and it’s safe for me.

I live my professional life in and around the courthouse. I gauge my schedule and my priorities to make sure cases that have an imminent court date are ready to present. This means that if your case doesn’t have an imminent court date, it will be hard to get me to focus much attention on it. Your case will move much more slowly than you would like.

When we are at the courthouse, there will be huge blocks of time when I will leave you alone while I negotiate or just swap stories with your spouse’s lawyer. Every now and then, I’ll report back to you on progress and tell you how negotiations are going. You probably will find it jarring that I’m so friendly with your spouse’s lawyer. Remember, you and I have a temporary relationship.Your spouse’s lawyer and I have seen each other several times a week for years, and our relationship will continue long after you’re gone from my life. It’s not surprising, then, that I’m more attentive to that relationship than I am to the one with you.

Early on in our relationship, you are in emotional distress, you believe that no one in the world has ever faced the problems you are facing, and you view me as a savior who can protect you from all the cruel insults you are facing. Over time, however, you will  begin to stabilize emotionally, you will begin to view me and my services more realistically, and you will begin to realize just how expensive all this is becoming. You may begin to resent me, and you may place a lower priority on paying my fee. You will also begin to hold me accountable for producing results that I know are unrealistic.

Although at the outset I stated an optimistic assessment of your case, over the term of our relationship I will become increasingly pessimistic with you about your chances. I will do this because, by then, I will become tired of you and tired of your case. I will want you to become more flexible in negotiations so I can reach an agreement with your spouse and your spouse’s lawyer. By then, I will have spent enough time on your case to justify keeping all the retainer, and I will be afraid that I may never see any more money, so I will press you to reach agreement with your spouse.

Also, as our relationship continues, I will be increasingly harder to reach. I may fail to return your phone calls, or I may call you back but be evasive about giving you useful information, always seeming in a hurry. I will do this perhaps without even realizing I’m doing so, primarily because it will be unpleasant for me to deal with you when you become increasingly unhappy.

Often an agreement will happen because you and your spouse meet over the kitchen table or on the phone and work it out, then communicate it to your respective lawyers. This agreement may be remarkably similar to what the two of you could have agreed had you been willing to cooperate with each other at the beginning through mediation or negotiations, but you won’t think about that by then, because to do so would be to admit to yourself that you’ve wasted several thousand dollars on legal fees. Even though I told you at the outset not to talk to your spouse, I will by then be secretly glad that you did and will work to help your agreement succeed (if I can avoid spending much time on it). Remember, by then, I will want out.

I have learned that most of my business comes by referral from other professionals, so it’s more important to me that referral sources feel good about me than that clients feel good about me. I devote lots of attention to my relationships with judges, other lawyers, and other professionals. On the other hand, I have over the years become quite comfortable with unhappy clients, even clients who complain about me to the bar association. This bothered me in my early years of practice, but I’ve become jaded to it now. The bar association knows as I do that clients of divorce lawyers are often unhappy. I know the bar association is accustomed to receiving these complaints and taking them with several grains of salt, so it doesn’t worry me much that you might complain about me.

I like you, and I’m a caring professional who wants to do a good job for you. I’ve learned not to trust you, though. I wish I could trust you, but I’ve been burned too many times by clients like you. I’m going to keep my guard up. Now that you know the way this works, let’s get started.

Sincerely yours,

Your Divorce Lawyer

The original article appeared in www.divorceinfo.com and can be found here.