Los Angeles Divorce Court Delays Due To Layoffs | March 2013
Hi there! This is Tim Blankenship, owner of divorce661.com.
This article is going to be about the delays of the Los Angeles Court systems due to the recent layoffs and future and pending layoffs.
Last week, I notice a huge delay in the processing of documents.
Normally, what we’ll do is if we file a case, and we’re filing anywhere from 5 to maybe 10 new cases per week, normally as a normal process we’ll simply take the signed paper and initial documents to start a case and just mail them to the court. Traditionally, this has been a three-day turnaround. So if we mail them out on a Monday, they’d receive them on a Tuesday. If they get them back in the mail and we have them back on a Wednesday, so it’s a very cost-effective approach to getting everything filed and served with the court and we’ll do that with all the documents along the way.
Anything disclosures that need to be files or other documents be filed with the court, we’ll do that by mail.
In the last week or so, we’ve noticed that are to be an extended delay on getting documents back. In fact, we’ve had one motion we filed, again, that would have normally been a three to four day turn around, it takes 10 business days to get back to us.
We’ve had new cases that we’ve submitted to the court and to the clerk to file and those have taken 2 weeks to get back to us.
Just last week, for the first time in all the years I’ve been doing this, we’ve actually had some cases not getting filed at all. Three weeks went by and we never had the documents returned to us, the client’s check wasn’t cashed.
Now, I don’t believe it’s the mail that’s not getting there. I think it’s the confusion and mix up with the courts and having to do with the layoffs and people not understanding the processes and being overwhelmed and busy in these documents that they’re receiving to file are getting put on the bottom of the pile, give them to the wrong person and so forth.
So just be as a warning, be advised that it’s going to take some time. There are some shakeups with the courts.
Make sure that you get your court forms sooner rather than later and this is particularly important when it comes to submitting your final judgment.
I’ve commented many times on how long it’s taking to get judgment signed off by the court, 2 to 3 months, more on the outside of 3 months. We can almost expect this to have a significant delay as well on those final judgments and I would expect that that go to the 4 or 5 month range for getting judgments back. So It’s going to be important to get those in as quickly as possible.
Again, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. You can reach me direct at 661-281-0266. Have a great day!