Can You Avoid Divorce By Watching Movies? | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Okay, so I was reading my news feed, that let’s me know about anything divorce related.  This one caught my eye. It said “Couples can avoid divorce by watching movies.?

Before i even read the article, I thought to myself, “Perfect, my wife and I love watching movies together”.

In fact we just had a marathon weekend this Valentines weekend where we watched the entire second season of House Of Cards, which is an amazing show by the way…

So as I was having that thought, I started to read the article. Then I started seeing words like “Clinical” and “Psychologist” and i suddenly realized that this was not about watching any old movie…

So what this story boiled down to is that showed that married couples who watch movies together and then talk about them, will strengthen the marriage.  But again, these are not just regular old movies.

What they did is pre select 50 films that couples could choose from to watch together.  The films had a common theme.  They were films where there were conflict resolution issues in relationships.  They were to watch 5 films of their choosing within 30 days

After the couples watched the films, they would discuss the film using questions provided to them.

So what was the result?

They said of their study that went from 1998 to 2004 showed that folks that participated had a 50% less likely chance of filing for divorce.

Hey, if watching movies can help improve relationships, I am all in. I am married and have been so for 18 years now, and would like to keep it that way.

It is not easy being married and it takes a lot of work to keep it together.  A lot of give and take goes on in our home and so far so good on the home front. Not that we don’t have our days, but I think that is just part of the deal.

If you are interested in learning more about the program or to participate you can go to couples-research.com.

If you happen to check it out, make sure to let me know in the comments section below.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm that specializes in divorce.  Why do we talk about how to keep your marriage together?  Because we don’t want people to divorce, but when people need help with their divorce, we want them to have an affordable divorce solution available.

Santa Clarita Divorce Rates Rise As Economy Improves

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Santa Clarita Divorce Rates Rise As Economy Improves

In a recent article in Bloomberg, it was reported that there is a worsening U.S. divorce rate due to an improving economy.  Basically, people did not have enough money to divorce during the time the economy was not so good.

In the U.S. during the recession (that they claim ended in June 2009) they stated that there was a 40 year low in divorce cases which was down as much as a third.  Between 2009 and 2012 people getting a divorce in the U.S. rose three years in a row to 2.4 million.  So there is a direct correlation between income and people filing for divorce.

Essentially, what this article points to is that people will avoid getting a divorce for financial reasons.  And I can tell you, without a doubt, that many of my clients going through divorce in Santa Clarita don’t file for divorce specifically because of money concerns.

In fact, most of my clients who filed for divorce and are in the middle of their divorce continue to live together during the entire divorce process simply for financial reasons.

This is so much the case, that people, in some cases, even wait until their tax return is filed.  Every year, I get many clients who call me in December, telling me that they will be filing in February after they have filed their tax return.

I guess so many of us are living paycheck to paycheck!!

Of course, Santa Clarita home prices have a lot do with an improving economy and we have certainly seen an uptick in pricing in Santa Clarita over the last few years. Almost seems that they are back to their pre-recession highs.

In any event, we are definitley seeing more divorce cases being filed now as opposed to the recession period.  I know that a lot of people are using our Santa Clarita Divorce Service, due to the extreme value we provide.

We can do just about everything a divorce lawyer in Santa Clarita can do.  The only exclusions are that we don’t give legal advice and we don’t represent you in court.  The idea being that you are trying to work through your divorce on your own and attempt to come to an agreement.

You can find the original Bloomberg Article Here.

How To Find A Good Santa Clarita Divorce Lawyer

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you read our articles about divorce in Santa Clarita, California, you know that we only recommend you hire a divorce attorney as a last resort.

I came across an attorney blog who had written a great post on how to find a good divorce lawyer in California, and I wanted to add my insights and comments.  You can find the link at the end of this article to the blog in question.

We would never say not to consult with an attorney if you need legal advice, we are just simply saying that most divorce cases in California don’t require an attorney.

That said, there are just some folks that will need an attorney for their divorce in Santa Clarita. The question becomes, how do you go about hiring a divorce attorney in Santa Clarita?

I found this article to be well written and address several things you should consider when deciding on what divorce attorney to choose.

One thing to consider is that every divorce firm in Santa Clarita, CA runs their office slightly different. I would know. I have work for and with most of the divorce lawyers in Santa Clarita in one fashion or another.

Some of the divorce attorneys in Santa Clarita are what you call “Solo Practitioner’s” who work by themselves and may or may not have a paralegal in their office.  These types of attorney’s will generally be answering their own phone and handling all the paperwork on their own.

To the other extreme, you have large family law firms in Santa Clarita, CA that have multiple attorney’s working for them, multiple paralegals and receptionist, etc.

One thing I would add to this article about how to hire a divorce attorney in Santa Clarita is that you have to trust your gut.

Use the ideas and thoughts in this article, but at the end of the day go with the attorney you feel will be right for you.

Here is the article if you were interested in learning more.

California Divorce | We Can Review Your Divorce Judgment

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We just completed a radio broadcast today on blog talk radio and we wanted to get the word out about  how and why you need to get your divorce judgment reviewed in California before you submit to the court for review.

On the radio show we were discussing some of the issues people are having when trying to complete their California divorce on their own. When people are completing their own divorce they have a falsee sense of security because when they are turning in their form such as their summons and their petition and all the other documents nobody ever says to them that they’re doing anything wrong.

Listen to internet radio with Tim Blankenship on BlogTalkRadio

The problem with this is that when you go to file your judgment, that will be the first time anyone actually looks at the paperwork you filed. It’s not the clerk’s job to look at your paperwork when you’re turning it in. So what the clerk does is take your forms that you may have completed wrong stamps them and puts them in the courts file.

This leaves you thinking you’ve done everything right and you don’t find out you made a mistake until you’ve turned in your final divorce judgment.

So you go through the whole divorce process, fill out all the forms you think you did everything right. You turn in your judgment and several months go by and you think to yourself that you must’ve done it right. Then out of the blue, six months later, you get paperwork back from the court. “You think, “great this is going to be my completed divorce” and what you find is a three-page notice of rejection of your divorce case.

Now what you have to do is go back figure out what you did wrong. You need to go through the checklist of issues trying fix what you did. Many times you’ll find it was a procedural issue and you have to go back and not only re-file paperwork but you’re going to end up having to re-serve certain paperwork as well.

What we recommend is that prior to submitting your final judgment in cases where you have prepared your entire divorce case, that you use our service where we will review your entire divorce judgment before it goes and gets submitted to the court.

By doing this you will ensure that your paperwork is done correctly. What we do with the divorce judgment review process is we will look at everything you have done up to the point of completing your judgment. We will review all the past paperwork and if any corrections need to be done we will take care of it.  If anything needs to be re-served we will take care of it and we will review and prepare your judgment and submit it to the court for review.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm that specializes in divorce in California.

For more information about why to have your divorce judgment reviewed please listen to the podcast in this article.

Understanding The California Divorce Process [Live Broadcast 7-17-13]

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Please join us for our live radio broadcast on July 17, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. “Understanding The California Divorce Process”.  This will be a live broadcast and we will be taking callers and answering questions.

Click this link on July 17, 2013 at 6:00 to listen on your computer.

We will be hosting these live radio broadcasts every Wednesday at 6:00 p.m., so make sure to tune in weekly.  You can find our Radio Show Page And Upcoming Broadcasts here.  You can also attend the live show from our show page.

In this broadcast we will be providing an overview of the California divorce process and answering frequently asked questions about divorce.

We get calls day in and day out and many times we are answering the same questions over and over.  So this will be a very informative broadcast.

Here is what we will be talking about.

  • An overview of the divorce process
  • The divorce forms
  • How long divorce takes
  • Information needed to file for divorce
  • Common problems when preparing your own divorce
  • Should you get help with your divorce or try to do it yourself

When the broadcast is over, we will be posting the recording to this page.  You can also find all our previous shows on our page that says “On The Air” at the top of site.

On the day of the live event, we will be doing a couple of different things.

First, we will be hosting the live radio show.  Callers can call in or chat and ask their questions.  In addition to the radio show, we will also be recording the event live on our Google Plus page.

If you are a Google Plus user and would like to watch the live video, you can find us on Hangouts On Air at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce in California.  We are headquartered in northern Los Angeles County and can assist you anywhere in California.

If you have any questions you can reach us at 661-281-0266.  We look forward to hearing from you at our live broadcast.

California Divorce Document Preparation Firm Now On The Radio

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We are excited to announce that we are now broadcasting live on BlogTalkRadio every Wednesday evening at 6 p.m.  The news was recently announced on our show this morning.  Here is the show where we made the announcement in case you wanted to learn more.

Listen to internet radio with Tim Blankenship on BlogTalkRadio

Our goal is to get the word out about our California Divorce Self Help Radio show so we can help folks throughout California who are representing themselves during their divorce get the the help they need.

If you are going through divorce in California or thinking of doing so, then you are aware how little information is out there.  And what information is out there about divorce is so hard to understand.  Everything seems to be written in some type of code.

With our Radio show we are hoping to cast a wider net than we have with our blogs.  We are using the paid service which gives us impressions which should help our California Divorce Self Help radio show found by the folks looking for help.

We will be taking callers on the show and answering questions related to the divorce process, divorce procedure and divorce forms.  We want folks to call us and ask us their specific questions so our listeners can learn from those going through the divorce process as well.

The questions we get asked about divorce everyday are pretty much the same.  There is always a little twist in that each person has a little different issue that can change the advice we would give however.

While we hope that people take advantage of the free information we will be providing, we also hope that folks decide to use our divorce legal service as well.  Either way, we feel we are providing a valuable service and at the same time getting our name in front of potential clients.

Make sure to tune into our show at 6 p.m. on Wednesdays to listen to us live!

Why Is Our Santa Clarita Divorce Service So Cheap?

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Why Is Our Santa Clarita Divorce Service So Cheap?

Can you believe that I actually had someone say, “Wow, how come your divorce service is so cheap”?  I guess, when you compare our prices to that of what attorneys charge, this is a totally normal question.

With the average cost of a divorce in California in the $15,000 per person (yes, $15, 000 for you and $15,000 for your spouse) it is no wonder we get people saying this.

But you want to know the truth?  We used to charge a lot more.  But what we found is that by having that higher price point, we were actually making it un-affordable for many people and this went against the whole reason we started this business in the first place.

We want our divorce services in Santa Clarita to be affordable.  But we also need to stay profitable, right?  We see so many business’s in Santa Clarita going out of business.  Remember Game Stop?  We heard that was a fantastic place  for sporting events.  But they only made it 2 years!

So where is the happy middle ground.  We feel it is at that point where a large portion of the population can afford your service and just above the point where we can turn a profit.

As a business plan, we want to help as many people as we can get though divorce.  We want everyone to have the ability to get affordable divorce services and not break the bank.

We also want to feel good about the business we are in.  We think we have found that middle point.  Very rarely do we have anyone say to us that they think we are charging too much or that they don’t see the value in what we do.

We are one of the only companies to actually place our pricing for divorce services on our website.  That way, we know that when people call us, they have an idea of what we are going to charge them and are not surprised or angered when we tell them the cost.

We think that when people ask us why our divorce service is so cheap, what they are really saying is that there is an extreme value in the divorce service we provide.

And that is the recipe for a successful business.

We Know Divorce In Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We Know Divorce In Santa Clarita

We are the industry specialist when it comes to divorce.  While we are headquartered in Santa Clarita and we do serve clients going through divorce all throughout California.

The divorce process is essentially the same everywhere in California.  In fact, the forms are completely the same, outside of a a few counties who have specific local area forms that are mostly used to determine jurisdiction of your divorce case.

In addition, the divorce process is the same.  The divorce courts want there to be some commonality in regards to the divorce process throughout California.

Because this is the case, the assistance you can receive from the divorce court facilitators and divorce court mediators are basically the same anywhere in California.

When we say we know divorce in Santa Clarita, is to say that we know the divorce process inside and out as it pertains to California divorce.

While the majority of our business is right here in Santa Clarita,  we do have a good percentage of business that comes from outside the Los Angeles area and from a lot of the other Counties in California.

Folks routinely tell us that we are the most informative divorce service in California.  We get calls from all over California who advise us that they have called numerous companies and we are the first company they have spoken with that makes them fell like we understand the divorce process.

That is what it really boils down to.  Hopefully, you will only have to go through the divorce process once.  Make sure you get it done right the first time and don’t use the low cost leader which almost always ends up with problems.

We are a full service divorce document preparation service that specializes in divorce in Santa Clarita and all of California.

We look forward to hearing from you and helping your get through the divorce process quickly and efficiently.

Best Value Divorce In Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Best Value Divorce In Santa Clarita

I recently read an article about pricing the services of a business.  The article said that you should emphasize the value of your service instead of focusing on price.

The article also indicated that when one competed on price, saying that they were the cheapest service, that people grew concerned that they would truly get what they paid for.

If you have every called us to ask about our service, you know that we are not shy about our pricing.  We know that even though we are slightly higher than others in the Los Angeles area, that you are getting such a better value, that we are worth it.  Don’t risk using the low cost leader when it comes to filing your divorce forms.  There is a reason they charge so little.

So what makes our Santa Clarita divorce service to valuable anyways.  Well, for starters, we are a full service divorce firm.  We take care of all the forms, prepare and file every document and serve all necessary forms.  Other folks mail you a questionnaire which you are required to fill out.  Then they simply take your answers and plug them in.  Even if it is wrong, that is what they fill in the blank with.

We work with the Los Angeles Superior Courts in the Family Law departments as intern/volunteers so we can keep up to speed with changing laws, process’s and forms.  Because of this, we can go deeper with you as far as explaining how the divorce process works and help you better navigate the court system when your divorce doesn’t go as smooth as you thought it would in the beginning.

People chose our service because of the value.  In fact, we have people calling us from all corners of California for help.  In most cases, they say we are the first, if not the only, legal document preparation service that seemed to know what we were talking about.

This is because there are so many amateurs out there saying they can help folks prepare their divorce forms, when truly they have no business being in business.

Licensed Divorce Document Service In Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Licensed Divorce Document Service In Santa Clarita

If you have been reading our blog posts, you know that we are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service.  We emphasize the fact that we are licensed because of the large amount of unlicensed paralegal services operating illegally in Santa Clarita.

We know for a fact that we are the only licensed divorce document preparation service in Santa Clarita.  But we see several folks calling themselves paralegals and who are not a licensed document preparation service.

Much has been said about these unlicensed paralegal services discussing their illegal operation.  Aside from them operating outside the law, they cast a negative shadow on the legal document service profession.

There is a reason that the County of Los Angeles requires you do become licensed.  They want to make sure you have the required skills, education and training to provide a legal document preparation service.  These unlicensed paralegal services are causing many problems for people who decide to use them.

For instance, I get at least one call per week from someone who hired an unlicensed paralegal to prepare their divorce paperwork.  They chose to work with the lowest bidder and learned the hard way that you get what you pay for.  Now they have to pay me to fix what the unlicensed paralegal did, or should I say didn’t do.

It is similar to when you hire a licensed contractor to do some work around your house.  You know you are going to pay more for excellent service and for them to do a good job.  They have a little more overhead because they had to pay for licenses, get educated, etc.  You won’t get that same service from the guys that hang out outside the home depot’s, but it will be cheaper.  You just can’t count on the fact that they will do it right.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specialized in the divorce process.  Please give us a call to learn more about our fixed fee divorce service.