Divorce Mediation Interview With John Morrison of Morrison Mediation

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I conducted a comprehensive interview with John Morrison of Morrison Mediation where we discussed divorce mediation. We talked about just about anything you would need to know when going through a divorce in California and whether using a divorce mediator would be useful or appropriate.

Below is the full 35 minute interview, however, I will be breaking the interview down into smaller bit-size bits as well so you can quickly find the answers you are looking for related to divorce mediation in California.

I will make sure to link to all of the individual parts of the interview so you can quickly listen to the portion of the interview about divorce mediation that interests you.

John Morrison and I talked about some really interesting topics related to divorce mediation in California. We talked about when you might want to use a divorce mediator, to if it is even appropriate in your case. We talk about how to choose a divorce mediator and why if you have complex financial issues you may want to consider using a mediator who is learned in complex financial issues.

John Morrison is a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. Now I have spoke and interviewed many divorce mediators, but never spoke to someone that held this designation and it was very interesting to learn about this specialty.

You can learn more about John Morrison at MorrisonMediation.Com

Valencia Divorce : What Is A Memorandum Of Understanding?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I just finished an article talking about divorce mediation and was discussing the use of something known as a Memorandum of Understanding, also known as a MOU.

If you are using a divorce mediator, especially a divorce mediator who is not an attorney, what you will come out of mediation with is a Memorandum of Understanding. It is just a fancy word for a document that contains your agreements as discussed through mediation.

A Memorandum of Understanding is not a settlement agreement, however. It cannot be used as part of your divorce judgment or turned into the court. The Memorandum of Understanding served only to document the agreements as discussed with your mediator.

The agreements in the Memorandum of Understanding then need to drafted in the divorce judgment documents. The reason the Memorandum of Understanding cannot be used as part of the judgment or Marital Settlement Agreement is because it lacks the sufficient legalese. That is why we take a divorce mediators MOU and enter the agreements into the judgment.

Some of the language can remain, but regarding certain issues, there is mandatory legalese that is required to be part of the divorce judgment, but not part of the MOU.

For instance, as part of your Marital Settlement Agreement, you most likely have a section to discuss the children and custody and visitation and things like that. That is fine, however the MOU does does not have the legalese that the child custody orders has which is one of the orders in the overall divorce judgment package.

So if you are using divorce mediation to work towards your agreements (which is great by the way) then you will still need a divorce paralegal firm (legal document assistant firm) to prepare your court forms and judgment so your divorce can be finalized with the court.

Are You A Divorce Mediator? Use Divorce661 For Your Divorce Processing

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Are you a divorce mediator and like doing mediation but not necessarily doing the procedural divorce paperwork? We’ll we have a solution for you. While not our primary source of business, we have been sought out by numerous divorce mediators to assist with the divorce document preparation and handle the divorce court procedural steps once mediation is completed.

We are very flexible when working with divorce mediators and their clients and there are different ways you can utilize us to keep your divorce mediation in your wheel house and make good recommendations when sending your clients out to have their divorce paperwork processed.

Here are few ways for divorce mediators to use our service.

Use us as an extension of your business – You can continue to be the contact point for your clients and use us to prepare, file and handle all the procedural steps. All communication between you can your clients will remain and we will be out of the picture and completely behind the scenes. We will coordinate anything we need through you which can then be obtain by you and provided to us.

Use us as a referral partner – When I speak to mediators, I give them the options in how they want to use our service. I think at first thought, the divorce mediators first want to be the contact point for communication with their client. But it usually only takes one time working with us to realize that we are professionals and will leave a good impression with your client as an extension of your service.

Divorce mediators will usually just have us deal with their client directly and let them know they are working with a 3rd party company to have the divorce process handled.

We are easy to work with – We handle all the paperwork so you don’t have to. We will file the Petition, handle the disclosures and prepare and file the judgment once all signatures are completed. We will deal directly with the court and save you time so you can spend more of it on mediation.

We save your clients money – Because we have worked with the courts and understand the process, we can save your divorce mediation clients money. Because they are in agreement, we can file a hybrid divorce judgment. This is just fancy speak for saying we will not have the respondent file a response so save on the $435 response fee. We will still prepare a stipulated judgment.

Just provide us your MOU, Marital Settlement Agreement or Judgment – We know there are different types of divorce mediators. Some are attorney mediators who draft Marital Settlement Agreements and some that are non-attorney mediators who draft Memorandum of Understandings. All we ask you to do is to provide your MOU and we will incorporate your clients agreements into the divorce judgment forms.

If you want more information about how we can help you, please just give us a call. We would be happy to discuss a working relationship with you and how we can serve you and your clients.

Stipulations Taking Long Time To Get Judge To Sign

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I have written plenty of articles on how to draft a stipulations and what stipulations are used for in the divorce process, but not so much about how long the stipulations take to get back from court.

Here is the deal. When we draft a stipulation and once it has been filed with the court, it can take several months to get the judge to sign it. It is not because they are figuring out if they are going to approve it or not, rather it is just sitting there in a huge pile of paperwork waiting to be approved.

When we take the stipulations down to the court via messenger, they are given to the file clerk, who receives the payment which is $20 to receive the judge’s signature and then the stipulations are eventually taken to the courtroom where you case is being processed. This is the situation whether your case is completed already or you are in them middle of the case.

So we really have no control over how long it will take to receive a stipulation back from the court. We have even had stipulations lost by the court which is always fun because we have to have the parties sign the stipulation again.

The court’s have even lost full judgments, but don’t get me started on that.

We do quite a bit of stipulations. They are good to draft up agreements the parties have or to make changes or modifications to terms in the divorce judgment or even to modify a previously written stipulation.

Here are some other articles I have written about divorce stipulations

Proof Of Income Required With Spousal Support Stipulations

Changes with Child Support Stipulations

Spousal Support Stipulations Need Specific Start Date

How To Establish Spousal Support Stipulation

In the last week or so we drafted several stipulations. One was a stipulation for child support and spousal support. We are working with clients who needed more time on how to decide the best way to divide up their property and with issues of child custody they still wanted to discus. But they were agreed upon on the amount of child support and spousal support so we went ahead and drafted the stipulations for child support and spousal support.

What we will do when they have the remainder of there agreements in is just attache the stipulation regarding child support and spousal support to the final judgment in their divorce case.

It is sometimes a good idea to have your agreements drafted in a stipulation while your are going through the divorce process so documents the agreements you have if you feel it is going to take a long time to decide everything in your divorce case.

Most our clients do the entire judgment at one time, but for these folks, one of the spouses needed to move out and wanted some reassurance that the child support and spousal support order was in place prior to moving out and is why we drafted the stipulation for child support and spousal support in this case. Additionally, the stipulation for child support and spousal support can be used as evidence of income if you are trying to rent a home or apartment.

Book Update : Ordered Cover Art And Set Publish Date In Amazon Kindle

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Well, this has turned into much more than a hobby at this point. Yesterday I set up the publish date with Amazon Kindle for May 1, 2016. I put in all the details of the book such as author, title, description and all of those things. Then it said I could set a publish date and even upload for pre-orders. This seemed like a great idea.

Once I hit submit, I was informed that I would now have to have my publish ready manuscript ready and published by 4/21 for a 5/1 publish date. I just lost 9 days in the writing process of my book. This now gives me about 25 days to write 50,000 words. I had listened to a podcast that said the best way is to divide the number of words by the number of days to give you the amount of words that need to be written daily. For me this number is 2,000 and it starts today.

I feel okay about the schedule actually as I write on my blog almost every day and sometimes post up to 5 articles per day. So writing is not really an issue for me. My concern is with the editing and formatting process. I spent a good 1/2 day yesterday trying to figure out a writing program that would work. But it was like having to learn a whole new process for editing using these platforms.

This was very frustrating and I can see why people just give up all together before they even get started. So I just decided to start writing the book and worry about the formatting later.

This morning I waked into the office and there was an email from Fiverr. I had placed an order through Fiverr for my book cover artwork and they were sending me an email regarding other services I may need. The service offered was for someone to format my word doc format text into a kindle ready upload. Perfect. Problem solved. So instead of spending what would probably amount to several days trying to edit and format, I will spend about $40 for someone to do this for me.

Have a full day of work ahead of me and then off to write my 2,000 words tonight.

Why You Don’t Need A Divorce Attorney : The Book I’m Writing

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I have decided to write a book. It has been on my mind and sort of in the planning stages for about a year, but I am doing it… Finally.

The working title of the book is, “Why You Don’t Need A Divorce Attorney, A Paralegal’s Take On Divorce, Responsibility and Compromise”

The idea behind the book is to create a resource for people to have that essentially explains why I feel most people don’t need a divorce attorney when going through divorce.

Over the years, I have been asked thousands of questions about divorce. And I have answered those questions over the years on the phone, but also by making videos about the questions as well as writing 1000’s of articles and publishing to my podcast on Divorce Master Radio.

IT was just time to put out a book. I think I offer a unique position on divorce because of how many divorce cases we handle each year. On average we handle about 30+ divorce cases for people who are trying to get through their divorce as amicable as possible and without having to spend a ton of money on divorce attorneys.

But I think there is a misunderstanding of my industry to where people think that we are unable to handle what they consider complex divorce cases. That is not the case. We handle all matters of divorce cases, the only questions becomes whether the spouses are going to play fair and try to be amicable about their divorce.

Also, I have been trying to get the word out about our industry over the years. There are just a lot of people out there that are not familiar with divorce paralegals or more specifically called Legal Document Assistants in California.

I will be writing and talking on our podcast frequently about the creation of the book. Not only to keep people informed about the progress, but to keep myself accountable for getting it done and actually put in the time and work.

So far I have come up with the working title. I have hired a graphic artist to start working on the cover of the book. I am telling everyone to expect it to be published on May 1, 2016. It seems that when I make plans to do something, that if it is too far out, I just won’t put the work in until the last minute. Forcing myself to write and publish a book in 5 weeks is really putting the pressure on.

I will keep you posted as we move through these quick 5 weeks.

Valencia Divorce : A Better Way To Serve Divorce Documents

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We are all about amicable divorce cases in California. So it would make sense that we advocate better ways to do things, especially ones that save you money and help keep your case amicable.

In this article we are talking about better ways of serving your divorce papers. What we are discussing is the process of service. This is when you file your divorce case, namely the Summons and Petition) that after it has been filed, it needs to be served. Most will tell you that it HAS TO BE PERSONALLY SERVED. This is not always the case. And in fact, if you are using our company for your divorce, we will be talking about a better way to serve, which is by mail.

(By the way, we provide a full service divorce solution throughout California. If you are looking to get a divorce and would like assistance, please give us a call for a free phone consultation at 661-281-0266. We have a full service and self-help service.)

Click Here to learn more about our full service divorce
Click here to learn more about our do-it-yourself divorce

What we are referring to here is a little known form called a Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt. It is a form that allows the spouse being served to accept being served… to acknowledge receiving a copy of the summons and petition, without the need for a 3rd party process server to chase them down and knock on their home or work door and be embarrassed.

Now you still need to have a 3rd party (friend, relative over 18 years old) be the one to mail the forms along with the acknowledgment to your spouse. The notice of acknowledgment is then filed with the court along with a proof of service that specifies how it was served.

Valencia Divorce : I Have A Divorce Attorney & Case Is Going Nowhere

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

I get so many calls where people have divorce attorneys in Valencia and they call me because their case is going nowhere. Their case is going nowhere and they have spent 1000’s of dollars on their divorce. In fact, I have had numerous clients who have tried to use an attorney and dropped a $5000 retainer only to have their case filed and not a whole lot else happening.

(By the way, we provide a full service divorce solution throughout California. If you are looking to get a divorce and would like assistance, please give us a call for a free phone consultation at 661-281-0266. We have a full service and self-help service.)

Click Here to learn more about our full service divorce
Click here to learn more about our do-it-yourself divorce

There is a time for attorneys and there is a time to take a step back and try to figure everything out on your own. You were married for a period of time and were able to make that work for a time, so take just a few more days, weeks or months to work through your issues regarding your divorce.

The alternative is spending money to have someone else (divorce attorney) figure out your problems for you. An attorney will never help you more than you can help yourself. All they are is a conduit (and a bad one) between you and your spouse (and their attorney)

Did you ever do an experiment in school, grade school perhaps or even college, where you lined up and the person at the beginning whispered something into the ear of the person #1 and then each person had to whisper the same phrase to the next person?

If you did, you know the experiment was to show you that what comes out the other end, was not what was said in the beginning. When I was in school the phrase that came out the end wasn’t even close to what was said initially.

Why do you think this would be any different with attorneys. You tell your attorney something. It goes through their filter (meaning they try to figure out what you want and then filter it through their life experience and brain) then they say that to the other attorney (but usually through a letter, because they can charge you more money for a letter than a phone call) then the receiving attorney gets the letter your attorney wrote and then instead of calling their client, writes, their own letter to their client (because they can charge more to write a letter than calling their client) and out comes nothing close to what you said to begin with.

Sigh….

Divorce can be so much easier. And I have gotten way off topic.

The topic was supposed to be that if your Valencia divorce is going nowhere and you are wondering why, give us a call. Our recommendation is to take a step back from what got you to where you are at in your divorce and see if there is any way you and your spouse can come to some type of agreement.

Perhaps you can work towards some type of cooperation where you both decide to give in a little bit and get your divorce case settled.

That is my take on things anyways.

Valencia Divorce : How Long Is This Divorce Going To Take?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Oh my god! I get this questions every day, like 5 times a day, even though I scream it on this blog, social media, my podcast and everywhere else.

That’s okay, it comes with the territory.

Here is the answer….

It is going to take way longer than you think..

Here is another podcast I have done on the subject… again.. 🙂

But here is the real deal.

The soonest your divorce in Valencia can be finalized is 6 months after the case has been filed and served. Not after it is filed, but after it is served.

Oh and another thing I hear all the time which is not correct.

People think that since they have been separated for more than 6 months already prior to filing for divorce that the six months started when they separated. This is not the case. In fact, I am going to do an entire blog post just on this wrong information.

So it is 6 months after the case has been filed and served. And by the way, the case has to be filed before it can be served. I see a lot of people thinking they can complete the divorce paperwork and serve their spouse before the case has even been filed. Oh, and people are serving their own documents. You can’t do that either.

That is for another blog post as well.

(By the way, we provide a full service divorce solution throughout California. If you are looking to get a divorce and would like assistance, please give us a call for a free phone consultation at 661-281-0266. We have a full service and self-help service.)

Click Here to learn more about our full service divorce
Click here to learn more about our do-it-yourself divorce

And here is the other thing you need to know. You don’t have to wait 6 months to turn in all your paperwork. 6 months refers to when the court will approve your judgment. This does not mean that you can’t turn your paperwork into the court prior to the six months. In fact, we turn our divorce cases as soon as 30 days after the case has been filed and served.

And guess what? We get our cases through the court in just about 3 months total, way before the 6 months. The thing is, the court will place an effective date of 6 months out from the date of service on your judgment paperwork.

Just give us a call and we’ll handle your divorce case for you.

That was easy!

Valencia Divorce & Spousal Support Calculations

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

When you are going through a divorce and you are going the decision of having spousal support as part of your divorce agreement, you might want to find out what the court might order so you have a starting point of what agreements you want to come up with regarding spousal support.

I will tell you this, however. If you guys are in agreement, you don’t have to use the numbers that come out of the spousal support calculation.

In my opinion, and it is just my opinion, I believe the best way to figure out what the spousal support payment amount is, is to look at your finances (both of you) to figure out what the person receiving is going to need in order to make it financially.

As part of our full service divorce solution we do offer a free dissomaster calculation as part of the service we provide.

Now, I know what you may be thinking. The person paying is thinking that they don’t want to support some lavish lifestyle. And trust me you won’t. But here is what you will each think if you don’t do it this way. The person paying is going to feel like they are paying too much and the person receiving is going to feel that they are not receiving enough.

(By the way, we provide a full service divorce solution throughout California. If you are looking to get a divorce and would like assistance, please give us a call for a free phone consultation at 661-281-0266. We have a full service and self-help service.)

Click Here to learn more about our full service divorce
Click here to learn more about our do-it-yourself divorce

The problem is that when you take 1 or 2 household incomes and then instead of having 2 household expenses instead of one, of course the money is not going to go as far. The financial situation after divorce, especially with one household income, is never going to be better than it was during the marriage. This is an unfortunate truth.

While we do offer the preparation of a dissomaster as part of our service ( a dissomaster is the calculator the courts use to calculate spousal support) we did find an online source you can use in the meantime as a guide.

I have written on this issue in the past (here is the link to the Spousal Support Calculation Article I wrote) that has the link to the website you can use for free.