Reseda CA Divorce Paralegal Service

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Reseda CA Divorce Paralegal Service

Today we are talking to the folks in Reseda California in the San Fernando Valley.

We’re a licensed and bonded legal document preparation firm specializing in divorce.

And in this article, I’m going to talk to you about why we are your best option for getting through your divorce. We’re going to help you through your entire case from start to finish for a low flat fee.

As I have stated, we are a licensed and bonded in the Los Angeles County area and we specialize only in divorce. We are full service firm, which means we’re going to care of your entire case from start to finish.

That means filling out the forms, take them down to court, filing them, serving them, all financial disclosures and preparing your final judgment because we are full service, we’ll also help you establish child support, spousal support, custody, visitation, everything you need to get through the divorce process.

It’s not just forms as people think it is. It’s much more difficult to get through the process on your own than it has been in the past and we have everything that you would need. Everything the courts have, everything the attorneys have to help you get through the process.

And because we are a full service, we’ll go down the court for you, file all your forms. This is something where you will be able to go on with your life and not have to think about the process, procedure, what I do next, we take care of all that.

The good news is also, you won’t have to do anything, you won’t have to go to court and we are less expensive than any online solution you may find. Some people look online and they find folks offering low cost prices online and I want to talk to you a little bit about that.

These online service providers basically lure you in with the low cost upfront but it doesn’t include any filing fees. None of the filing fees are included in there and what happens is you have to pay the filing fees twice when you use an online service or any other legal service out there because they’re not familiar with the process.

We specialize only in divorce. We understand the process. I’ve worked for the courts in the past. There’s a way to get through this with a single filing fee and we can save you money on your divorce.

And we’re going to do all the work.

So let me just give you a little bit of math here. If you use an online service provider and let’s say they charge you $300, and that sounds like a great price as they lure people in all the time on that.

You’re going to have to fill out a long questionnaire. They’re going to get the forms all sent to you in a single stack, and then you’re going to have to figure out what to do and read their twenty-page explanation on what to do next.

You’re going to have to go to court, file the forms, serve the forms, do all the work, you’re going to have the other party, in this case, your spouse, obviously, is going to have to do the same thing.

You’re going to have to go down, file a response, serve the papers on you. You guys are going to go back and forth through this – all the way through it. It’s not an easy process.

So you had your $300 fee, and you’re going to have to file $435 currently in LA County, and then, what the instructions will tell you to do is that your spouse has to file a response and pay another $435.

A lot of people do not know that they have to pay another fee. Now, your $870 plus the $300 now you’re at $1170 and you have to do all the work. I just want to make that clear.

You have to go down the court multiple times. File, serve, all that. You’ve already completed this long questionnaire. It’s a lot of work, and then you have to prepare your judgment. You have to make four, five copies of everything. It’s a big deal.

With us, we are less than the total cost, that $1170, we are less than that. We are going to do everything for you. We put in to thought every form there’s no questionnaires, nothing. You go on with your life, we take care of everything and it’s less than any other online service or paralegal service out there. So please give us a call.

Now, here in Reseda, our main office is in Valencia. You do not have to come to our office. We do a lot of what we do right over the phone. We have clients all throughout Los Angeles County, in fact, we have clients all throughout California.

Please give me a call. 661-281-0266. Go to our website, divorce661.com. We have hundreds of videos, podcasts, tutorials, self-help videos. We even are on iTunes at divorce master radio and on Stitcher Radio. So, if you’re on to podcasting you can find us there. We’ve done some interviews and we talk a lot about the divorce process in California.

Please give me a call. We’d love to help you to your divorce process. 661-281-0266

California Divorce Costs | Attorney vs. Legal Document Assistant | Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

This article is about the California divorce process and the costs associated with getting divorced.  We compare the costs of divorce of using a divorce attorney and using the services of our divorce legal document preparation service in California.

Please feel free to watch the video below.  We also have included the transcribed version of the video.

Hi, this is Tim Blankenship with divorce661.com. Today we are doing another live broadcast and are also having this transcribed at the same time so we can embed this into our blog and uploaded this to an audio file. This is if our  computer can keep up with that.

So today we’re talking about the divorce costs and specifically going to talk about the difference between the cost of hiring an attorney to do your California divorce or hiring someone like my firm, which we are legal document assistants.

First off, let me tell you what a legal document assistant is. We are a licensed and bonded  legal document preparation firm and we just happen to specialize in the divorce process in California.  We are able to work without an attorney in our office which allows us to provide a more affordable service.

So let’s get into the divorce cost attorney versus legal document assistant. So obviously attorneys are doing  a much different job than we do. Mostly the divorce process is completing paperwork. There are occasions where you may need attorney and that’s if you need legal advice or if you need to be represented in court. Those are the two things that we are unable to do. Our license does not allow us to do that. And that’s because we are not attorneys. So if you feel that you will need legal advice or you’ll need to go to court to be represented that there you probably will need an attorney.

So lets back up just a bit and talk about the beginning of the divorce process in California. The California divorce process is mostly made up of paperwork.  You have you’re initial documents that need to be completed followed by doing your financial disclosures which these do no require an attorney. In fact, the divorce process in California can be completed entirely by a legal document preparation firm such as ours without any attorney supervision or without you ever needing to speak with an attorney.

Now we do have clients who start with us and they know they may need attorney down the road, but they want to get as much of the paperwork done as possible before going out and hiring attorney. So lets talk about the cost little bit. The average cost to have your divorce completed by an attorney and this is some research I’ve done online. You can find it as well if you were to look for it is about $20,000.  And that’s $20,000 per person, not the total of both parties.

We have clients who call us who have spoke with attorneys and they are to shocked by the amount of money that they are going to charge them for the divorce after they’ve talk to an attorney. They generally will call our company to find out if there are some other form options for the divorce case. So when we talk to them go weeks find them the difference you want people to understand that there is a difference between what attorneys doing what we do, but the end of the day we can help clients get through the entire divorce process from start to finish without any attorney supervision and without you ever needing to speak to an attorney.

Now if there it we run into trouble, and you do need to legal advice, not a problem. We can always refer you to an attorney in your area and you can get some legal advice a consultation if you need be, and then we can get right back to work for you. We can always just do that for you and you don’t have to hire the attorney to do that for you.

My name is Tim Blankenship. We are licensed and bonded legal document preparation service specialize in divorce. When you use our services. We worked on a flat fee basis. We do not use a retainer fee. We will quote you a flat fee for your divorce and that will be the total cost start to finish. We do everything for you from filing initial paperwork to prepare all the forms.  We taken down everything to the court for you and this is a complete service from start to finish, meaning from initial forms to service to judgment all for a flat fee.

You can go to our website at divorce661.com and we have some pricing packages you can see, based upon at the amount of work that needs to be done if you have children if you have property that needs to be separated those all are determining factors on the total cost of your divorce.  And feel free to look at our pricing page for more information.

Going back to retainers and how those work many people tell us that they spoke to an attorney and he told them the cost would be say $3500 or $4000.  Now what that is is that’s just a retainer that’s not the total cost of your divorce. The total cost your divorce is going to be whatever it takes at that attorney’s hourly rate to get the case finished. So if they’re asking for 3500 $4000 or $5000. That number doesn’t really matter because they are going to bill at their hourly rates if it’s $300,  $400, $500 an hour. They will bill you at that hourly rate until that monies extinguished and if your divorce cases is not finished you’re on the hook for the difference.

So that’s how divorce cases can end up in the $20,000 range. Based on the high attorney hourly rates. So if you’re looking for more affordable service to get your divorce completed and if your case is mostly amicable in nature, even if it’s not amicable, even if you know your going to need a divorce attorney, but you want to save some upfront costs on the document preparation we can really help you save some money by using our service.

So feel free to give me a call, my name is Tim Blankenship and our website is www.divorce661.com. My direct number is 661-281-0266.

Santa Clarita Divorce Service Celebrating National Small Business Week

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We are proud to be a small business in Santa Clarita.  And if you didn’t know, this week is National Small Business Week, so we are celebrating.

But what are we celebrating exactly?  Well, we have worked hard to grow our small business in the last year.  We have taken our Santa Clarita divorce service from a home based business working out of our loft to a executive office in Valencia with 3 employees in less than a year.  That is cause for celebration.

When we first started, we would meet clients at Starbucks on the corner of Valencia Blvd and The Old Road.  When we first started we were not sure if this would be a viable business model.  We were pretty sure there was a demand for affordable divorce services in Santa Clarita, but were not sure if there was enough demand to allow us to keep our prices low enough for most people to afford our service.

After a little more than a year, our Santa Clarita divorce business is doing well.  We now employ three people in Santa Clarita.  When we hired our first employee, the business took on an entirely new feel.  I now was responsible for the welfare of another persons livelihood.  It is like when you have a baby, you realize it is no longer just about you.

We are also now working with the College of the Canyons Paralegal Program and assisting with training some of their soon-to-be-paralegals who are required to complete (2) sixty hour internships as part of their curriculum.  Some of their students perform internships with us and learn the in’s and out’s of working with a family law divorce service.

Running a small business is tough.  We put in a lot of hours to keep the business going.  Having a small business means thinking about it 24 hours a day and it can really consume you.

We are looking forward to expanding our services into the surrounding counties over the next couple of years.

Here is to all the Santa Clarita small business who make this community great and provide jobs and services to our community.

 

 

No Need To Figure Everything Out Before Filing For Divorce | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

Are you one of those people that have to have everything figured out before you do something.  Well, when it comes to getting a divorce, that is not something you have to worry about so much.

When folks call me, many of their questions are about the end game.  Meaning that they are thinking about how they are going to reach a final agreement on their divorce.  While it is good to have an understanding of how you want the divorce to conclude, it is not necessary to have every single detail figured out before filing for divorce.

If you are trying to figure out every last detail of your divorce before you file, you will never end up filing for divorce.  I recommend that you break down the divorce process into a couple of steps so the divorce process is more manageable.

This is how we operate our divorce files for our clients.  The first thing we do is only complete the necessary divorce documents that are required to get a case number issued.  There will generally only be 3 or 4 forms you have to complete in order to file your divorce with the court.  That is all you should be focusing on at first.

Then, after the divorce is filed, focus on getting your spouse served.  These  two steps are the first thing you should do.  Having your spouse served is what will start the 6 month cooling off period.

Now that this is done, you can start on completing your financial disclosures.  This is your preliminary declaration of disclosure and is where you will list all the assets and debts of your marriage.  This will be used as a template so the parties understand what there is to divide.  Until you have completed your financial disclosures, there is no sense trying to come to an agreement on the division of property.

I have some clients who call me and say they are waiting to file for divorce until they have a complete agreement.  Again, while it is a good idea to be thinking of what you want out of the divorce, don’t let this stop you from filing for divorce and getting the process started.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document assistant company in Santa Clarita and serve all the courts in Los Angeles County.

Like Our Santa Clarita Divorce Service On Facebook

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

We have been working on our Facebook pages lately and have begun a marketing campaign using Facebook pay per click.  We have done Facebook marketing in the past, but it has been difficult to determine if there is any benefit in doing so.

We do a lot of online marketing with our blogs and pay per click on Google, but those people are conducting a search for us purposely. The Facebook ads are more like a commercial in that they just appear whether your are looking for us or not.  So I would imagine that it is more of a branding and letting people know we are here and may result in future business, but no direct correlation between them clicking our ad which results in business.

This is much different than our pay per click ads on Google search, as those people are specific looking for our service.  The costs of our Google adwords each month can be directly tied to the amount of business we get in a given month.

So we are trying to raise our marketing efforts on Facebook to have a greater presence and hope that people find us and, of course, later use our divorce service in Santa Clarita.

That said, make sure to “Like” of Facebook page.  You can find our Santa Clarita Divorce Service on Facebook by clicking the link we just highlighted.  We are hoping be getting more likes on Facebook that we can gain additional exposure to our divorce service and eventually earn the trust of folks who will later use our service or refer our divorce service to their friends and family.

 

Does Your Divorce Paralegal Work For The Courts? Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

As it stands now, we are the only licensed and bonded legal document preparation company in Santa Clarita.  In fact we are the only legal document preparation company in all of Los Angeles County that specializes in divorce.

For now, we enjoy not having any competition in the Santa Clarita Valley.  However, there are lots of paralegal companies in the San Fernando Valley, many of whom are not licensed.  But there is certainly more competition in the San Fernando Valley regardless.

One thing we focus on and talk a lot about is regarding our experience in this industry of divorce and family law.  Our claim to fame is that not only are we the only legal document preparation company in all LA County to specialize in divorce, but we are also the only company that has ever worked for the Los Angeles Superior Courts.

That’s right, we have worked for the courts and completed the Los Angeles Counties family law paralegal internships.  We actually still volunteer there to  this day.

Why do I bring this up?  Again, because experience counts.  Don’t you want to work with a company that has the most experience.?  Well, you are probably thinking, “Yes, but how much does that cost?.  The funny thing is, despite the fact that we are the most experiences divorce service in Los Angeles County, our prices are still very low.  In fact we charge what you would pay with one of these other unlicensed companies.

Here is why our work with the courts is so important to you as a potential customer.  We know and understand the process of how the courts work and use that knowledge to help our clients navigate the court system.  We have worked with the Courts. We know the people that work there and are familiar with the landscape of the court.

When we send our clients to court we can tell them exactly who to talk to, where to go and how to get there.  This takes a huge burden off of you trying to figure things out and lessens the stress load considerably.

If you are faced with divorce, consider using the only divorce service in all Los Angeles County that specializes in divorce and has the experience of working with the courts.

Started My Divorce And Now Need Help | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

If you started your own divorce and now need help, you are not alone.  Many people are convinced that they can complete the divorce process on their own.

While there are people that get through the divorce process on their own, they did not do it without facing many problems along the way.  How do I know this?  Because I have lots of people who call me who started their divorce and later found that it was not as easy a process as they thought it was going to be.

People who start their own divorce generally feel that their divorce is pretty cut and dry because they either have an agreement on the terms of the divorce or because they figure it is just a matter of filing out a bunch of forms.

While it is true that the divorce process is just filing out a bunch of forms, a large percentage of people who take on the divorce process on their own are not able to succesfully complete the divorce process without some outside assistance.

That is where we come in.  If you have started your divorce and realize that you are not going to complete it on your own, there is help.  Maybe you got in over your head and the paperwork got confusing or perhaps you got through all the paperwork, only to submit you final judgment paperwork and have it rejected by the court.  What’s worse, is that your case was rejected for forms you completed several months ago in which the clerk stamped, but did not say there was anything wrong with them.  Frustrating to say the least.

We can assist you with your div0rce regardless of where you are at in the process.  We get lots of cases every week which are at different points in the divorce process.  Some have just filed and others did all the paperwork,  but later found they had wasted their time becuase it was all incorrect.

If you need assistance, please give us a call.   We would be happy to take a look at your divorce paperwork and complete a quick review to see where you went wrong. Often, we find that the very first documents completed were wrong and need to start from the begining.  Sometimes we find that the other party was never served.  Rest assured, we will get to the bottom of it and make sure your divorce case is completed.

We are a divorce document prepa

Does Signing The Divorce Petition Mean I Agree | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

There is a huge misunderstanding about a part of the divorce process that I want to clear up.  This is in regards to the California Divorce Petition and the requests you make.

The Petition is a form you will complete when you file for divorce.  It lets the court and the other party know what your are requesting.  Again, it simply tells the court what you are requesting.  They are not orders.

An issue we have been having is when we mail the Petition to the other party and ask them to sign a form acknowledging that they received the Petition.  Doing this helps us to avoid having to hire a process server.  When you sign the acknowledgment, it simply means that you received that divorce papers, not that you agree to the what is in the Petition or remainder of the divorce papers.

We recently mailed out some divorce papers to the respondent in a divorce case.  After the Respondent received the papers, he called the Petitioner and said he is not signing the papers because he does not agree with what the Petitioner is asking for.

So what are the options when this happens.  Well, the first thing you can do is attempt to explain it to them.  But it is unlikely that your spouse will listen to you since you are going through a divorce in the first place, but you can try.

The next thing I would try to do is have them get the answer from someone who is not involved.  Have them go to the court and ask the self help center if signing the acknowledgement of receipt means that you agree with what is in the petition.

If none of these work, then you will simply have to hire a process server to do it.  And again, just because the process server hands them paperwork does not mean they agree with what is in the petition either.

Do You Need A Divorce Minute Order | Santa Clarita Divorce

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

What is a divorce minute order, when will you need one and how do you get one.  All that and more is answered by the article by Tim Blankenship with https://divorce661.com and discussed in the below video.

First off, let’s talk about what a divorce minute order is. A minute order is simply the court clerks detailed notes of what happened in a hearing or trial.  So you won’t have a minute order unless you have been to court.  So if you have had a trial or hearing and need to know what orders the court made on that date, you would get a copy of the minute order.

Now, why would you need one?   Most people will never need a minute order, but there are circumstances where you will.  One such circumstance is if you go to a hearing at divorce court asking the judge to make order after you had filed a motion.  So let’s say you filed a motion for spousal support or child support, the hearing was held and the judge made orders.

If you are representing yourself, the judge may ask you to prepare what is called an Order After Hearing.  It essentially is a “Order… After… The hearing.  You have to type of the order of the court and would use the minute order to get the exact language of what the judge ordered during the hearing.  When you submit the order after hearing back to the court for the judge’s signature, they will verify the language of the order matched that of the minute order.

In the video above we go into a little more detail about how to complete the order after hearing, but that will be for another blog post and another video down the road.

Now, now to you get a minute order.  This is quite simple.  All you need to do is go to the court room your case was heard in (if it was recent) and give the court clerk the date of the hearing and request the minute order.  If it has been several weeks and there are no future hearings, your file may have made it back to the storage area, in which case you would request it from the court clerk’s office.

We specialize in divorce in Los Angeles County and are centrally located in Santa Clarita, CA.  Please give us a call if you would like to learn more about our divorce services.

How To Keep Your Divorce Amicable – Santa Clarita

Posted by Tim Blankenship on

How To Keep Your Divorce Amicable – Santa Clarita

There are lots of benefits of having an amicable divorce in Santa Clarita. Probably the biggest advantage is cost. With an amicable divorce, you don’t need to hire an attorney which will save you a ton of money.

There are some things you can do to help keep your divorce amicable throughout the process. The common theme throughout this will be communication.

First, prior to filing for divorce it is a good idea that you try to discuss getting divorced. Try to have a few conversations with your spouse and come up with a plan. Those with a plan of action fare much better.

This means deciding on when to file, who is going to file and agreeing on a divorce document preparation company like us to meet with.

One or both of you can meet with us to make sure you are comfortable using our service. When you meet with us, we will explain the divorce process in full so both parties understand exactly what to expect throughout the process.

The next thing to do to keep your divorce amicable is to avoid hiring a process server. Nobody like having some stranger walk up to them and be handed divorce papers and told they are being served. We can help you avoid having to do this. In fact, you could simply have the spouse that needs to be served come to our office and pick up the documents. We will complete the necessary forms to tell the court that service was completed.

Most issues that come up will be about custody and visitation of children or about money. We will show you how to use the courts free services to help you understand the law so you can make decisions on any issues that you are having trouble coming to an agreement on.

Using the ideas in the article will help keep your divorce amicable. Give us a call so we can come up with a plan for you to keep things running smooth during your divorce.