Hi, Tim Blankenship here with divorce661.com. In this episode what we’re talking about is the California courts and the self help centers.
I met with a gentleman the other day. He started his divorce 6 months ago. He has full time employment, so does his spouse, but thought he would try and save some money by trying to do his own divorce, as many of you do, and I get that. You want to save some money, but I’m going to tell you, you are going to spend so much time and resources down at the courthouse trying to do this free service. All you’re going to do is get stuck in the end.
I see this, I get this phone call 10 times a day where people have tried to do their own divorce, they’ve gone to the self help center and then reported back to me, when they finally hired us some 6 months or a year later, the trouble they ran into in using the self help center.
This particular gentleman said he spent 3 days at the self help center over a period of 6 months and he had to go down there multiple times. Aside from them being rude, which they almost always are, they are unhelpful. So it’s kind of funny they call it the self help center.
He was given bad advice. He was told he had to amend certain documents when he didn’t. They had him filling out all kinds of forms that weren’t required for his particular case. Here’s someone, as most of you are, you have full time jobs, you have children.
This is not your industry, this is not your business. You’re not in the business of divorce, like I am, as far as from the perspective of handling the paperwork and dealing with the courts. This is not something you should take on for yourself. You’re going to spend more money in lost wages as this gentleman did, going down to court, missing work at whatever your hourly rate is, instead of just hiring someone from the get go.
Now, I know that’s a hard pill to swallow upfront. You’re going to have to figure this out and learn it for yourself the hard way, it’s not something I can probably tell you. I can just share for you from experience with our clients.
They come to us after starting their own divorce. They are not getting good help at the self help center and it’s costing them more in their own missed wages from not working than just hiring someone from the get go. We can get you squared away if you find yourself in this position, we can help you. We help people finalize their divorce that get stuck somewhere through the process, so just give us a call.
