No one who is about to go through a divorce wants to be subjected to the type of spiteful and hostile divorces that are routinely portrayed in movies and television, but many feel that an adversarial contested divorce is inevitable to the process.

A “contested divorce” means that the parties can’t agree on all the issues, such as property division, custody and visitation with children, the amount of spousal support (alimony), how to divide debts, or payment of attorney’s fees. 

In these cases, a family court judge will ultimately have to decide these questions after divorce litigation.  The reality is that a contested divorce is usually not inevitable, and although a divorce will always be difficult, for many divorcing couples in San Diego much of the emotional and monetary cost of a contested divorce can be avoided.  Continue Reading