Is Your Divorce In The San Fernando Valley?

If you have been reading our blogs, you know that we have multiple sites that are dedicated to certain geographic locations.  And we like to talk about our new sites when we get them up and running.

We have just created a new divorce paralegal site with great information about the divorce process and our services in the San Fernando Valley.  You can also visit our new site at www.paralegaldivorcesanfernandovalley.com

Yes, we know it is a long name, but it does speak for itself.  We are hoping that the search engines will pick it up faster for this reason so we can get the word out about our affordable divorce service in the San Fernando Valley.

You may have come across our other site which you can find at www.divorce818.com.  This site also talks about divorce paralegal information in the San Fernando Valley, but it also has information about all the cities that fall within the 818 area code.  If we do any type of paid advertising it will probably be with the divorce818 site due to its length.

We will attempt to get as much information about our paralegal divorce San Fernando Valley blog out on the net so that folks have access to our self help videos that can show you how to complete the divorce process and navigate the court system on your own if you wanted to.

Short of that, we simply wanted to have a place folks can turn to for trusted information about the divorce process in the San Fernando Valley.

If you are going through a divorce in the San Fernando Valley, you should know that we are the only divorce paralegal service that specializes in divorce.  We also have a 100% online divorce service.

For more information about our San Fernando Divorce paralegal service, please give us a call or visit www.paralegaldivorcesanfernandovalley.com

Santa Clarita Divorce Blog A Wealth Of Information

As the only Santa Clarita divorce blog providing self help divorce information, our site is really starting to become the go to source for information about divorce for the self represented client.

Our goal has been to put out so much content about divorce in Santa Clarita that we literally appear on every search you could think of as it pertains to divorce.  And it is starting to work.

It takes time to build a credible blog.  This is true both in the eyes of the All Mighty Google and our potential clients and local community.

Slowly but surely we are gaining traction and getting the word out about our affordable divorce service which is headquartered in Santa Clarita and serving all of Los Angeles County through our online divorce solution.

We are using multiple ways of gaining attention on the web.  We have our YouTube channel which we produce about a video per day, letting folks know about our business and even producing “how to” videos on completing the divorce paperwork.

We have a daily Divorce Podcast which provides information about divorce and our company.  All of this information is tied back into our Santa Clarita divorce blog into a single source where it can all be found.

We are finding that many people are reading the content on our divorce blog, watching the divorce videos and listening to the podcast. This is a great way to educate yourself about the divorce process which will ultimately assist you when it comes time to filing for divorce.

We hope you enjoy all the divorce information we are putting out on the web.  You are always welcome to call us for more information about our divorce services and how we can help you get through your divorce.  Until next time, happy reading.

Process Of Filing Divorce Papers | Santa Clarita

If you are representing yourself during divorce and are going to file your own divorce papers, this article will explain the process on how to do this. First thing, you need to find the right divorce papers you need to complete in order to file.

These initial divorce papers are the first set of forms that you will take to the court to file so you can open your case and get assigned a case number. When you file your divorce forms, there is a certain way you need to have your forms.

The courts are very particular about how you prepare your forms.  first off, you can simply use the appropriate divorce forms by using the courts website to access the free fillable forms.

That way you will make sure to use the correct forms. Also, the forms need to be hole punched a certain way.  When the  courts file your forms, they use a 2-hole punch at the top of the form.  When you go to file, make sure that your original forms have the 2-hole punch.

Then have 2 copies of each of the forms you are filing.  One copy will be for your records and the other one will be used to serve on your spouse. You can watch this video where we go into more detail on how to file your divorce forms.

When your done, you should leave the court with 2 copies of what you filed.  They should all be “Conformed” copies, meaning they have been stamped by the clerk of the court.

The court will keep your original documents.  In most cases these first divorce papers must be personally served on your spouse. It is a good idea to keep a folder and organize your documents so you can easily locate them.

You will need many of your divorce forms that you originally filed when you go to prepare and submit your judgment. We specialize in providing an affordable divorce solution.

We are located in Santa Clarita, CA and serve all the courts in Los Angeles County through our 100% online divorce service.  Please give us a call for more information.

Court Closures Not To Effect Santa Clarita Divorce Cases

The Los Angeles Superior Court System announced on November 14th, 2012 that there would be an additional 10 courthouses that will face closure.  Non of the closures will effect our Santa Clarita divorce cases as the court closures do not impact family law courtrooms.

I have included the original announcment below.

Lawyers will find it hard to move personal injury cases along, Consumer Attorneys President-elect Brian Kabateck said after being briefed on the court’s plans, which include directing most PI cases into just two master calendar courtrooms.

Los Angeles County Superior Court will stop hearing cases in 10 courthouses, shutter a dozen criminal courtrooms and cram many personal injury cases on to just two calendars, court leaders told a select gathering of lawyers in a meeting Wednesday.

Presiding Judge Lee Smalley Edmon confirmed Wednesday afternoon that the court is launching a major restructuring in the coming months to prepare for a 2013-14 deficit that could reach $80 million.

The targeted courthouses are in Huntington Park, Whittier, Pomona North, Malibu, West Los Angeles, South Los Angeles (Kenyon Juvenile), Beverly Hills, San Pedro (the main courthouse and Beacon Street annex) and Catalina. Edmon said the courthouses may stay open for limited functions, like court filings or settlement meetings. But trials and hearings once held in those locations will be moved elsewhere, she said.

“The difficulty I have with all of this is our court system was designed to be a neighborhood court system,” Edmon said. “Unfortunately our budget has been cut so much that we’re not going to be able to continue that level of service.”

The closures and consolidating will lead to “a large number of additional layoffs,” she said, although the exact figure and timing of those job losses hasn’t been determined yet.

The large-scale closures come in response to four straight years of steep budget cuts and to Governor Jerry Brown’s directive that trial courts spend down almost all of their local reserves starting in 2013-14. Los Angeles County Superior Court has lost 875 positions over the past four years due to layoffs, attrition and elimination of vacant jobs, Edmon said.

As part of the court’s redesign, many personal injury cases will be sent to just two master calendar courtrooms in a single location to sort out all pretrial or settlement matters. Each of those judges is expected to have as many as 8,000 cases under his or her jurisdiction at any one time.

“If you have a matter that has to be heard … there’s just not going to be the resources to quickly and adequately handle these matters,” said Consumer Attorneys of California President-elect Brian Kabateck, who attended the Wednesday morning briefing.

Court leaders and lawyers are still discussing ways to send complex or catastrophic civil cases to so-called independent courts that set their own calendars. No one is sure how those cases will be identified, however.

Lawyers “think all of our cases are catastrophic,” Kabateck said.

Plans also call for shrinking the number of courthouses that hear specific types of cases. Small claims cases, now heard in 26 courtrooms, will be handled in just six court facilities across the county. Courthouses that handle landlord-tenant disputes will drop from 26 to five. The 24 courthouses that hear collections cases will shrink to just two. The court will also eliminate any remaining reporters in civil cases and reduce the number of courtroom assistants, Edmon said.

The planned closures and consolidations will affect 37 judicial officers and 279 court employees who handled 429,085 filings in the last fiscal year, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Reassigned judges will be given work that they can do without courtroom staff, Edmon said.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service specializing in divorce.  Please give us a cal for more information about our affordable divorce solutions.

What Does Personal Service Mean During Divorce

As a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in divorce, we spend a lot of time serving divorce papers back and forth and filing documents with the court.  We also spend a lot of time educating our clients and potential clients on how the divorce process works.

When it comes to divorce, the process of serving documents is very important.  There are certain documents that can be served by mail and others that have to be served personally.

Figuring out which divorce forms have to be personally served and which can be served by mail is the hard part.  But we are going to clear that all up right now.

As far as divorce is concerned, there is really only a few things that need to be personally served.  If we are talking strictly about divorce, then the only documents that need to be personally served are the initial divorce documents, namely the Summons and Petition.

In most cases, just about everything else that you file with the court can be mail served.  Mail serving your document simply means that you mail the documents to your spouse, but you still need to complete a proof of service.  In most cases, you don’t have to file a proof of service for mail served documents.

For instance, when you complete your declaration of disclosure, which consists of the income and expense declaration and schedule of assets and debts, you can mail serve them to your spouse.  Just remember to complete a proof of service and file the declaration regarding service of declaration of disclosure.

One important thing to remember is that you cannot personally serve the divorce documents to your spouse.  You will have to find someone who is over 18 years old and not a party to the divorce.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process.  We provide a 100% online divorce service and serve all of the Los Angeles County area.  We are headquartered in Santa Clarita, CA and can be reached at 661-281-0266.

When you are going through the divorce process, one of the important things you will learn is about the process of service.  But probably one of the most important times you should be especially aware of how to serve divorce papers is when you have to serve the initial Summons and Petition.

The majority of divorce forms can be served by mailing copies of the filed documents to your spouse.  However, the divorce Summons and Petition must be personally served.  This means that the Summons and Petition must be hand delivered and in certain way.

Rules About Serving Divorce Summons and Petition

A person can act as a process server as long as they are over the age of 18 and not a party to the case.  This means you cannot serve your own divorce Summons and Petition.

People who can be used as process servers:

1. A County Sheriff or Marshall
2. A coworker
3. A friend or relative
4. A professional process server
5. Anyone over 18 not a party to the case

I can’t say it enough times that you cannot serve your own divorce papers.  If you do the service will be not be good.  You could go all the way through the divorce process and find out your proof of service is defective because you served your own divorce papers.  The only thing that could save you is in the case where the respondent filed a response.  The filing of the Response is evidence that they have been served and they will determine jurisdiction to be that of the day the Response was filed.

The nice thing about working with our legal document preparation service is that we will take care of all the service of all your divorce forms.  In fact, we usually use an alternative forms of service for the Summons and Petition called the Notice of Acknowledgment and Receipt.

As far as all your other documents that need to be served, we will prepare a mail proof of service to send along with such documents like your Declaration of Disclosure or any other forms that you need served.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process

 

Using Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt During Divorce

When going through an uncontested divorce in California, there are several ways to complete the service of process.  Here, we are discussing the use of the Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt during divorce.

The Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt is considered a method of “substituted service”.  This simply means is can be used as an alternative to the normal process of using a process server.

The reason I like to use the Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt is because for one, it saves my clients to have to pay a process server a fee to do this.  The second reason is because if you are going to go through an uncontested divorce, there should not be any reason your spouse will not agree to sign the Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt.

This is the way this form works.  You have to have someone over the age of 18 and not a party to the divorce, prepare and mail the form indicating what documents are being served.  The notice of acknowledgment of receipt can be used to serve any of the divorce documents, including the Divorce Summons and Petition which normally requires personal service.

When you are using the notice of acknowledgment of receipt to serve the Summons and Petition of your divorce, you also need to file a proof of service of Summons, just the same way as if you had personally served the paperwork on your spouse.

When you are going through an uncontested divorce, using this alternate method of service is a good way to both save money and keep things from heating up during your divorce.  No one likes to have divorce papers handed to them by a stranger and being told they are being served.

Instead, use the Notice of Acknowledgment of Receipt when serving the Summons and Petition.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process.  We are headquartered in Santa Clarita, CA and provide a 100% online divorce service which means we can help you anywhere in California to get through the divorce process.

Clients Impressed With Online Divorce Service

Today was a busy day in the divorce legal service industry despite being Veterans Day, which by the way I am proud to say I am one.  Having served in the Marine Corps many moons ago, I look back and it is hard to believe how much time has passed since Desert Storm.

In any case, today was a perfect example of how our 100% online divorce service works.  I met with a new client online using GoToMeeting which allows me to share my computer screens so the client on the other end can see what I am doing.  Doing this serves many purposes.

First, It is much like meeting in person, but much more convenient for my clients.  This new client of mine had never been on a GoToMeeting type system and was immediately impressed that she could see my screens.

Prior to our meeting starting, I had spent some time getting some of the divorce forms ready by filling out the Caption portion of the forms.  The caption is just the top part of the divorce paperwork where indicate your name, address and phone number and indicate if you are represented by an attorney or representing yourself.  It also includes the boilerplate information such as the court address and the names of the Petitioner and Respondent.  I try to get these done before meeting with my clients, because it can take quite a bit of time to type this information, especially when you are talking about filing a new divorce case.

We spent just over 2 hours preparing the initial divorce paperwork along with a Motion called a Request For Order.  This Request For Order (RFO) was for child support, child custody and child visitation.  And because we were filing a motion, we also had to complete the income and expense declaration as any time you file a motion that has to do with money, you need to complete an income and expense declaration.

Once the divorce forms were all completed, we went through one last time and I had the client verify all the information was correct.  Once that was done, I emailed the completed forms so she could sign them and send them back to me.  Once I receive them back, I will be filing them with the San Fernando Branch of the Los Angeles Superior Court

Today’s activity was a perfect example of why our online divorce service is so effective.  I have yet to have anyone not working with me online to complete their divorce forms.  In fact, most have been impressed. Others who are unfamiliar with screen sharing and other online technology are generally surprised and say how easy it was to complete their divorce online with our divorce legal document preparation service.

You can always call us to get more information about our legal document preparation service.  We specialize in divorce and provide a 100% online divorce solution.  We maintain this model in an effort to keep our costs down so we can pass those savings on to our customers.

We are located in Santa Clarita, Ca and through our online divorce solution are able to serve all the Courts in Los Angeles County.

Why You Should Not Buy Divorce Forms In California

If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times, don’t buy your divorce forms.  It is completely unnecessary.

Why?  Because the California divorce forms are all available for free from the various County websites. I have even gone as far as to prepare a video on how to find the free fillable California divorce forms.

It frustrates me a little when I receive a call from a new client who says they purchased their divorce paperwork from some online company and now have a stack of divorce paperwork with absolutely no idea how to complete it.

Most of these online forms selling companies are hoping for exactly that.  That you will receive your divorce paperwork in the mail and have no clue how to fill it out.  They want you to call them back up and ask for them to prepare your divorce forms for you.  In fact, if you don’t call them, they will call you to ask if you need assistance filling out your divorce forms.

It should be a crime to sell divorce forms you can get for free to people for several hundred dollars.

I have seen these divorce forms they mail to people.  A box full of divorce forms.  In fact, they mail you every divorce form there is.  Most of which you will never need.

There is a better solution to buying your California divorce forms and attempting to do the paperwork yourself.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process.  We don’t just sell you forms.  We will prepare each of the divorce documents and get you entirely through the divorce process.  This includes filing and serving all your documents and keeping your apprised of the next steps and court procedure.

For more information about our specialized divorce service, please give us a call.  We are headquartered in Santa Clarita and serve all the courts in Los Angeles.

If you are looking for help with your divorce in Santa Clarita, you will be glad you found this site.

As a legal document preparation service that specializes in the divorce process, we are not afraid to show all and tell all on how to prepare your divorce paperwork.

I was actually talking to a good friend of mine the other day who called me because he knows I run a business and wanted some pointers on how to attract customers online.  I told him that one way is to provide “how to” videos.

“How to” videos he asked.  “If I provide videos on how to perform the service I am trying to charge a fee for, won’t I be shooting myself in the foot?”

I was surprised by his question, but then again I wasn’t.  But his question is the exact reason why business fail to market themselves online properly.  They are afraid of providing information for fear that people will take the information and do it themselves.

We provide a complete “how to divorce video series” on YouTube and other video sites. We put up as many divorce videos as we can on how to complete your divorce and any thing else we think our clients may be looking for answers for.

Will some of these folks find the answer and never call us?  Of course.  And that is great.  But there are folks out there with the same questions, but who are looking for someone to help them with their divorce for one reason or another.

You can’t be afraid to give out free information.  How else are you going to attract potential customers to your business?  We give out all the free information we can think people would want.  Some will use it.  Others will be grateful for the information, but call us to do the work for them.

Either way we win.  We win by helping the public do-it-themselves and by gaining credibility in our field.

So if you are looking for help with your divorce, make sure to spend as much time on our site and absorb all we have to offer.  If you can’t find something, give us a call, we would be happy to write and article or shoot another video to answer your question.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document  preparation service headquartered in Santa Clarita and serving all the courts in Los Angeles.  We specialize in the divorce process.