Divorce Process
We help people who want to be friends with their spouses after the divorce to:
Prepare for the divorce with pre-divorce counseling. This includes estimating the complexity and communication of the situation to estimate the cost of the process during the initial consultation. Planning to leave your spouse is a traumatic undertaking and we help our clients figure out where they are going to live, how they are going to pay their bills, what property they can take with them right now, how they can prepare their children for the changes and best position themselves and their families to have stability.
We write reality letters with great care and concern. Many troubled relationships have been threatened with divorce and a letter from an attorney communicates that the marriage really is ending. A letter from us, with references to appropriate resources, is carefully tailored so it doesn’t sound like a generic letter from a divorce lawyer. Instead, it explains the type of process (collaboration, mediation) our client proposes using and the outcomes she/he has in mind.
Many clients like to have a deadline for talking to their spouse. We are able to serve as accountability partners in a very real way. For example, someone will hire us and agree that they should tell their spouse over the weekend that they want a divorce. On Monday, we will send the reality letter and insure that the conversation our client has been wanting to have for months finally occurs. This letter confirms our firm’s representation but it does more than that. It sets out a framework for process with a timeline for action and let’s everyone know that the divorce is happening, that it need not take forever and that doesn’t have to be so bad.
Pack your bags and then what? The period right after someone asks for a divorce is confusing:
We help our clients decide whether they should stay in the marital home or not. We help them reach temporary agreements about where the children live and who pays the bills. If agreement is impossible, then we can obtain temporary order that will guarantee a parent access to his or her children and assure that the mortgage gets paid and the gas heat stays on while the couple figures out how to move forward.
We help our clients create parenting plans that reflect the unique needs of each individual family. As mature lawyers who have been divorced ourselves, we don’t view child visitation as a contest between two parents to see who can get more credit on the child support calculator. Instead, we carefully guide our clients toward workable plans that are functional and age-appropriate. We know respected child psychologists, play therapists, social workers and other professionals who can lend their support to insure that our parenting plan proposals are respected during a collaboration, a mediation or by the Court.
Prioritize Financial Needs.
Where will I live? Can I afford to buy a house? Should I find an apartment? Can I move out and stop paying the mortgage? Should I move in with my parents?
These questions don’t have easy answers. Our job as divorce lawyers is to help our clients prioritize financial needs and create budgets for their post-divorce lives. We work with financial professionals to insure that no one leaves our office feeling like divorce is going to leave them without a dry, safe place to sleep. Many of our clients have fears about how they’ll pay for health insurance or groceries without their spouse’s income. Divorce planning and realistic budgeting alleviates those fears.
We help our clients negotiate for a fair share of the family home, the retirement accounts and personal property like cars and boats. Marriage is a financial arrangement that rarely ends as abruptly as the romantic aspects of the relationship. Working with us and drawing from our experience, clients can decide what material things really matter for their post-divorce sanity and happiness.
D-E-B-T. Almost everyone has some debt. Lots of Americans have lots of debt. There’s good debt, like low interest rate mortgages, that our clients want to hang on to after divorce. There’s bad debt, like high interest rate credit cards, that our clients don’t want to get stuck with after divorce. There are fair ways to divide debts and there are unfair ways that lead to bankruptcy. In fact, we pay special attention to bankruptcy in divorce and help our clients decide if bankruptcy might make sense and protect other assets like the family home. Washington residents can keep up to $125,000 in home equity. Oregon residents can protect up to $40,000.
No one likes paying taxes but for people who are getting divorced, subtle tax filing differences can cost thousands of dollars. Who should get the tax credit? Are you going to be able to claim head of household status? These are HUGE questions with significant financial consequences. We can help you answer them in a way that makes sense for your future. Our firm is very comfortable with this important topic.
Forms. Forms, forms, A form here, A form there. Here a form, there a form. Everywhere A form. Divorce involves lots of forms and while none of them are incredibly complex and all of the forms are available for free somewhere on the internet, we help our clients file petitions, affidavits of residency, vital statistics census, residency status, child support certification, findings of fact and law, affidavits, parenting plans, parenting class certification, child support calculations, judgment liens, lien satisfaction documents…
All in the right place, at the right time, in the right order. Filing forms is only part of what we do but it is an important part.
We help our clients protect assets legally, safely and ethically. Many divorces today involve bankruptcy filing. The lawyers at our firm have backgrounds in consumer law and counsel clients about their rights as debtors. We can negotiate deals with creditors, help clients decide if bankruptcy makes sense for them and help clients obtain bankruptcy protection. We help clients assess the impact of bankruptcy and walk them through various scenarios on the way to becoming financially independent and whole after divorce. Then, we can talk about setting up a trust and paying for college.
