2012: San Diego Divorce Lawyer Help

Do you need a San Diego divorce or legal separation of paternity attorney to help you with your pending case in San Diego Superior Court? Are you currently in a paternity, divorce or legal separation case in San Diego? Do you need help with the legal analysis of your legal separation, divorce or paternity case in San Diego? An experienced family law attorney can discuss the individual issues in your divorce, paternity or legal separation case and you can then make informed and intelligent decisions regarding litigation or settlement. All cases are individual and the facts and circumstances are different however the law applied equally to all so an analysis can be made.

In a divorce or legal separation case, there are five basis issues: child custody and child visitation; child support; spousal support; division of assets and division of debts. Some who are in a legal separation or divorce may not have all five basis issues and this can make the case easier to analyze since the Court has discretion over some issues but not over other issues. For example, in custody and visitation cases, the Court has wide discretion to make parenting plan orders however, in a child support calculation, the Court must follow California guideline child support programs. Of course, there are always exceptions and deviation motions to guideline child support are filed however not common. Another example is, in a paternity case, there are no issues regarding spousal support or division of debts or division of assets.

Child custody and child visitation can often be the most contentious issue in any paternity, divorce or legal separation and understandably so. Where your children live and with who and what your parenting plan is post judgment can affect your entire life. In San Diego, the mediation is mandatory, absent an emergency, before an order is made by the Judge for the custody and visitation. In San Diego, the mediators [Licensed Clinical Social Workers hired by the San Diego Superior Court] make written recommendations if an agreement is not reached by the parents in mediation. The Judges follow the written recommendations the vast majority of the time. As such, the mediation recommendation is crucial for an analysis of how to proceed if you do not reach an agreement at family court services.

Child support, as mentioned above, is calculated on a computer program. As such, an attorney can give you a realistic expectation of child support for both temporary [pre judgment] and permanent [post judgment] orders before you go to court so you can settle if at all possible.

Spousal support, as opposed to child support, is calculated pre judgment as a temporary order on the same computer program but, for post judgment support as a permanent order, a different criteria is used and this is contained in Family Law Code Section 4320. For duration issues in spousal support, the Family Law Code Section 4336 applies and defines a long term marriage as one with a length of more than 10 years. In these cases, there is an indefinite reservation of jurisdiction where as in a marriage of less than 10 years, the duration for spousal support of one half of the marriage is used per the law.

The division of assets and debts are calculated from date of marriage to date of separation but many issues can arise such as gifts, inheritances, student loans, gambling debts, breach of fiduciary duty, reimbursements, credits and many others.

Please contact us if your need divorce help in San Diego.