I client had recently asked for some information regarding California spousal support and long term marriages. I sent them the below email and later realized it would be a good article for all my readers and clients. It was not personalized so is applicable to all.

I wanted to send some information regarding spousal support. Keep in mind I am not an attorney so will be including some links for your review and my thoughts. There are entire trials on support and for every law or case that argues in one directions there is equally as many to argue the opposite position.

On long term marriages of over 10 years, the courts generally will maintain jurisdiction over the issue of spousal support indefinitely. This essentially means that it is under the court’s jurisdiction to modify up, down, or terminate support upon motion of one of the parties when there is a change in circumstances (such as change in income, etc.) This is often misunderstood to be considered lifetime support. While support in long term marriages can end up being for lifetime, that would be up to the court upon motion of the parties.

Here is a link with good information on spousal support, including long term marriages.

California Spousal Support Facts

Spousal support is there to assist the spouse to get back on their feet after marriage. The duration of support is a very grey area, and the party receiving support is supposed to make reasonable efforts to become self-supporting within a reasonable amount of time. This timeframe is a very grey area and is often called a “Gavron Order”

Here is a good link for this information.

Gavron Order In California Divorce

For purposes of you guys, you can agree to a specified period of time, however as the court will maintain jurisdiction over support, the court order could also simply read, “until further order of the court”

I decided that for the first part of 2017 I would start by providing the chapters of my book, “Why You Don’t Need A Divorce Attorney” which I wrote in 2016, into separate blog posts.  The idea behind the book was to get as much information out in the world about what I do and a better way to get divorced in California.

You can Also Purchase The Book On Amazon Below

Why You Don’t Need A Divorce Attorney: One Paralegal’s Take On Divorce, Responsibility And Compromise

I have also created an audio book version of this first chapter below as well.

This is part 1 of Chapter 1 of the book.

My name is Tim Blankenship and I own a Legal Document Assistant Company in Los Angeles, California called Divorce661 and can be found at www.divorce661.com. We provide an affordable approach to getting divorced in California providing both a full service solution and a do-it-yourself divorce solution at www.CaliforniaDivorceTutor.com. I wrote this book to show you that there is a better way of getting divorced than going the route of hiring a divorce attorney. Thank you for reading this book. I think you will enjoy it and find it very interesting and useful whether you are thinking about divorce, in the middle of a divorce, or know someone who is going through divorce.

Here’s My Story

Everybody has their story of where they are and how they ended up there. Well, here’s mine. It is nothing very exciting, but more interesting than anything else. How did I go from high school, to the Marine Corps during Desert Storm to becoming a Police Officer for the Los Angeles Police Department and then end up helping people with their divorce?

All I can say is that “Life Happened”.

After I got out of the Marine Corps I ended up working as a Police Officer for what was then the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department. Back in 1994 I had applied for several law enforcement agencies and the MTA Police Department hired me first. A few years later, our agency was merged into the Los Angeles Police Department where I worked until 2007.

My life up through this point was great. I was married, had two children, a house, a great job and things were going well. Then it happened. In 2006 I had began selling real estate on the side as there was great money to be made due to the housing boom. I had sold real estate with my wife for about a year and we were making money hand over fist. So much so, that I decided to quit my job with LAPD to focus full time on real estate. At this point my wife and I had our own real estate team as well as working with investors flipping homes so making the move made sense.

Oh boy did we think we were so smart and set for life. But we already know how this turns out, right? There are so many stories and so many people that lost everything when the real estate market and the economy collapsed. And we were no exception. It was gone as fast as it came.

Scrambling to figure out a way to make money, I worked as a Private Investigator for a while and was trying to decide what to do with my life. I had started back at school to finish my degree and it was at that point I decided I wanted to go to law school and become a lawyer.

So I did. Well, I started going to law school anyways. Let me give you a glimpse of my life at this point. I was going to law school, started volunteering at the Los Angeles Counties Court self help centers, volunteered as an intern for the Los Angeles Superior Court System which finally led to a full time job as a paralegal working for a law firm. I was 41 years old and have a wife and two children to support and just never thought I would be where I was at that point in my life. But I just kept plugging away.

While working for a law firm that handles divorce and while still attending law school, I slowly became dismayed at what attorneys actually do. Especially as it relates to divorce. I saw families further torn apart, perhaps worse than if they had not had attorneys. I saw people spend 10’s of thousands of dollars on fighting their spouse throughout the divorce process. I saw attorneys giving advice that in no way shape or form was in their clients or their families best interest.

And again I was at a crossroads of what I should really be doing. So I started doing a little research with the belief that there had to be a better way to get through this thing we call divorce. I discovered that there was a not very well known way of helping people with their divorce without having to go to law school and without having to become a lawyer. I also learned that there was no one in my local area providing these services.

What I am referring to is what is known as a Legal Document Assistant. And it just happened to turn out that because I had my degree and had worked for the courts and a law firm that I already met the requirements to become registered to provide these services. So I got registered as a Legal Document Assistant, continued to work as a paralegal for the law firm and was still attending law school.

I started slowly in the evenings, after work and when not studying for law school to start marketing my business as a Legal Document Assistant. Fortunately, I had honed my skills at marketing which I learned in my short stint with real estate, especially online, so I knew I had a pretty good chance of getting my business off the ground. Slowly but surely I started picking up clients. I would meet them at their home or at Starbucks. I was just starting out, so did not have an office and really didn’t know how well this business venture might turn out.

It had been maybe 2 months since I started helping people part time with their divorce with my Legal Document Assistant business. One day at work, I get called into the partner attorney’s office and he tells me that he has to let me go. I was being fired? It turns out he found out that I had started a business and said that it was a conflict of interest. I guarantee that had I worked at any other law firm that this would not have happened. This was just the nature of this particular law firm.

It was September, 2012 and I found myself realizing at that moment that my little part time business just became a full time business that absolutely had to work out. This was no longer just an extra income experiment, it was now my primary way of earning money. So I got to work doing what I know how to do best. That is marketing.

Fast forward to 2016 and I am still here – And in a big way. I have been able to take a little part time business and turn it into a rapidly expanding full service Legal Document Assistant company in California handling approximately 30+ divorce cases per month. I have published over 1,200 articles online, recorded over 1000 videos and have a podcast that I broadcast daily on. I have helped clients going through divorce save 100’s of thousands of dollars in attorney fees over the years. I am still here, but life sure has its challenges.

About This Book

So why write a book? With all the content that I have produced over the years, I still get the same questions over and over every day. I wanted to put all the content I have produced, whether written or spoken into a single format for people to be able to find the information they need. In addition, I wanted to inform the public about what Legal Documents Assistants really are and what we can really do so people understand that there are better ways to go through divorce than to hire an attorney.

This book will be broken down into chapters which will have questions that I have been asked over the years with the answers that I have given over and over again. And this won’t be just a question and answer session, I will also be giving you my perspective and personal opinion along the way on how I feel about certain situations related to divorce based upon my experience in having helped 1000’s of people with their divorce.

I hope you learn from this book, not only from my experience in helping people with their divorce, but to fully understand that there is a better way to get through your divorce rather than hiring an attorney.

This book is written with the intention of getting spouses to sit down and figure out how they can best get through their divorce. It is to put in your face that it is your responsibility to deal with this as an adult and not let emotion or whatever else get in the way, causing you to throw away money because you are mad at each other. It is to tell you to compromise with each other and if you have children to make decisions in the children’s best interest and not yours.

I think it is ridiculous that people fight during divorce. I can’t stand the pettiness that is involved, the name calling and irrational behavior that can consume you. Knock it off and act like the adult you are! I know, harsh words, I told you that I would be sharing my perspective. And you might not like it and that’s okay.

Now, on this high horse rant of mine, I know that there are folks out there that absolutely need to have an attorney. There are evil doers out there looking to do you harm and you need to protect yourself. This book is not for you and I don’t want you to take offense. I am on your side. And to you evil doers who create chaos and harm others… Shame on you.

Continue reading by clicking the links below.

Just a quick article today to say Merry Christmas to all current, past and future clients of Divorce661.

Our offices will be closed today and we will reopen on Tuesday, December 27, 2016.

The Court’s are also closed today in observance of the Holidays.

I do hope you had a nice holiday with your family. Ours was very low key. We didn’t have to drive anywhere and we didn’t have any family over. Just my wife and 2 kids hung out and watched some movies and played some games.

We did get lazy on Christmas and went to Larsen’s Steak House in Valencia for a nice dinner.

Over the last 5 years of providing our divorce service in California, I have noticed, and commented before, that as we get closer to the Holidays that the amount of divorce cases that are filed slow.

It makes sense that going into Thanksgiving and through Christmas and the end of the year that people decide to put their problems on hold so they can have some semblance or normalcy during the holidays.

In fact, while the new divorce filings go down, we see many of our clients wanting to finalize their divorce paperwork a few weeks prior to Thanksgiving so they too can have a somewhat normal holiday and not have to think about divorce.

I used to wonder why the divorce filings slowed and the first year thought it was possibly my marketing or something like that. But over the years this has happened each and every year. I have spoke to several family law attorneys as well and they too get slower over the holidays.

I am able to track my website visits during November and December and we see an approximately 50% drop in visitors to our website.

Now this year, I have noticed that this has started a few weeks earlier than normal.  For instance, in years past, I would notice it start to slow down around the middle of November, right around the 15th through the end of the year. In fact, I have placed a calendar popup for this year on the 15th of November to remind me that business would naturally start to slow.

What was interesting is that it had already started slowing closer to the the 1st of November, 2 weeks earlier than last year.

The only thing I can thing that is different is the 2016 Election. I think that a lot of people are keeping their eye on the election and are concerned for whatever reasons they have to be concerned about.

In any case, it is not as if by not filing for divorce during November and December reduces the amount of cases filed. All it does is cause a lot more people to file for divorce when January rolls around, which another trend that people in the divorce business call, “Divorce Season” which then really kicks off starting with Valentines Day when we see a huge uptick in divorce filings.