In 2010, New York became the last state in the country to become a “no fault” divorce state. (California was the first to eliminate all fault grounds for divorce.) “No fault” means that it doesn’t matter why either party wants a divorce. All you need to get a divorce is for one spouse to say that the marriage is broken beyond repair. To translate that into legal terminology, the spouses are experiencing “irreconcilable differences.”

What is “At Fault” Divorce?

“At fault” (or “fault”) divorce refers to a legal system that only grants divorce if one spouse can show that the other spouse did something wrong. In other words, one spouse must be at fault for the failure of the marriage. Continue Reading

In California, it only takes one spouse to end a marriage, and your spouse does not have to prove you’ve done something wrong. If you’ve received a petition and summons for dissolution, your spouse is seeking a divorce. This can be a stressful and confusing time. The whole process takes at least 6 months to complete. Knowing what to expect can help ease the burden.

Responding to the Petition and Summons

In the petition, you can see what your spouse is asking of the court, including child custody preferences and support payments. The petition will also contain some restrictions on what you can do while the process moves forward, such as selling property or moving your children out of state. Continue Reading

Divorce can be a complicated and frustrating process. Modifying your estate plan while going through a divorce can complicate things even further, especially if your estate plan is not up to date. It is important to ensure your estate plan is up to date when you are divorcing, because your spouse could inherit under your will or life insurance policy, should you pass away while your divorce is pending and fail to remove your ex-spouse as a beneficiary.

There are certain rules in California that make it tricky to modify your estate plan while going through a divorce. First and foremost, when you start your divorce by filing the dissolution petition and serving your spouse with a summons, an Automatic Temporary Restraining Orders, or “ATROS,” goes into effect. The ATROS automatically impose four rules – by way of California Family Code Section 2040 – that limit a spouse’s ability to change his or her estate plan. Continue Reading

Divorce is stressful enough without having to face massive debt. You need to protect yourself and your financial situation before your divorce is final. Here are some tips to help you avoid negative consequences of your soon to be ex-spouse’s actions.

• Establish your own credit accounts. If you and your spouse are on speaking terms, come up with a way to separate and divide your credit card debt. Close out all joint accounts. While in a perfect world this should be done with your spouse’s cooperation, the fact remains many people have been dragged into financial crisis by a spiteful spouse who runs up debt and refuses to pay. By establishing your own accounts and your own credit line, you can protect yourself. Know that if you can’t agree to divide debt, the court will do it for you. Unfortunately, even if the court decrees one spouse has to pay a debt, the credit companies can still come after you if your name is on the account. Continue Reading

Divorce lawyers across the country have seen a dramatic increase in pet custody disputes over the last decade.  This is partly due to a shift in societal attitudes.  People have increasingly come to see pets as members of their family, deserving of affection and happiness, and whose presence in the home is essential to their personal happiness and the happiness of their children.  Because the law in all states still considers pets to be property, the problem of disputed pet custody and support has required creative legal solutions.

How Courts Handle Pet Custody Disputes

Although pets are considered property, their low dollar value and status as beloved family members means they cannot reasonably be sold and the proceeds divided in the same way as other property.  Rather, the court will either award custody of the pet to one party or craft a shared-custody or visitation agreement.  In doing this, most judges will consider: Continue Reading

If you have a divorce or other family law case pending in a San Diego court, there’s a difference between getting a temporary order and an emergency order.  Temporary orders are common, and these are usually orders that a court makes after a hearing with all parties.  But sometimes one side may ask the court to make an order immediately—without notifying the other side and without a hearing.  This is called an “ex parte” order, and they’re not granted in the typical divorce or child custody case.  Continue Reading

It’s well known that divorces can be difficult.  Besides dealing with property division, alimony, child support, and visitation, the spouses must also cope with the array of emotions accompanying the end of their marriage.  Those emotions can worsen already-existing conflicts and make the divorce process more difficult.

As a sociologist recently explained, no marriage is conflict-free, and those conflicts may fall into one of four categories.  First are “one-time, solvable problems,” which are conflicts created by a particular situation, not a clash of personalities.  Second are “cyclical conflicts,” which are ongoing, but alternate between being a big problem at some times, a small problem at others.  Third are “deal-breakers” – the sort of conflicts that cannot be solved by agreement, because they arise from a fundamental difference in personality or belief.  Lastly, there are “wounding problems.”  These conflicts arise over and over – like cyclical problems – but they tend to produce feelings of hurt and frustration, and can be very difficult to resolve.  Continue Reading

Do you know who’s looking at your Facebook page?  Most people know that potential employers often check out your Facebook or MySpace profile before hiring you.  But, this is also an important consideration if you’re going through a divorce.  Your social media accounts (such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn) could contain a mountain of evidence that your soon-to-be ex spouse might use against you in court.

The use of online evidence in divorce cases has become so common that Time magazine recently featured an article about Facebook and divorce.  It has been reported by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers that over the last five years, 81% of its divorce attorneys have dealt with evidence obtained from social networking websites.  When someone is going through a divorce, these websites can serve as an outlet to express their feelings of anger, hurt, or disappointment.  But sometimes, a person’s online posts may come back to haunt them. Continue Reading