Hey everybody, it's Andy and welcome again to my office in Modesto, California.
If you're new to the channel, I'm an attorney licensed to practice law in
California as well as New York and in this video, what I'm going to try to do,
uh, actually probably, this is probably the first part of this video actually,
but what I'm going to try to do in these
videos is to go over the California divorce process
from the very beginning to the very end, from soup to nuts basically.
The reason I want to do that is because I see a lot of people kind of, you know,
face to face, you know, in court and stuff as well as online, who are basically
stuck, for lack of a better word. Like they, they started the divorce themselves
and it's taken five years or whatever and
they have spent, you know, thousands of dollars, but they're still not done. They
don't know what to do next. They're just sick of it. They want it to be over,
etc. So, um, that's basically who this, uh, sorry, who these videos rather,
you know, two, two parts, three parts whatever,
that's who these videos are aimed at and, um, I guess, hopefully, I mean at the end of
all these videos hopefully you can see basically that the process overall is
actually not that complicated. That the vast majority of people,
especially if they're doing the case themselves,
they basically have never gotten divorced before, this is their first time,
they never thought they'd be here. Uh or it's
something where they got divorced once before, but it was years ago and they
don't remember what they, like what they did and so on. So, um, if
you're, if you're unfamiliar with any process - divorce,
you know, or something else - if you're unfamiliar with any process, it's
basically going to be confusing regardless. Like you can be the
most intelligent person, you can prepare as best you can,
but if, if you do anything the first time, you're generally going to be confused,
make mistakes. The second time, the third time probably
not, but, um, yeah, like if you're doing it the first
time and you don't quite understand what to do.
You want to do the right thing, but you don't know what it is that's why you
feel stuck and you don't want to do the wrong thing and so on. So it gets
to be a gigantic kind of cascade of kind of difficulty, I suppose, but the
basic idea hopefully at the end of these videos is that you'll see 'Oh,
the process actually makes sense. The process, okay, this is the big picture.
I'm stuck in this little part right here. I can't see the big picture, but now that
I do, it's a lot less confusing. This is what I
need to do next. That's my hope, I guess, at the end of all
these videos that you'll understand where you are in the process, what the
next step is, how to get there etc, etc. So, um, hopefully that helps.
So on this part, I'm probably going to go over at least two things right now.
In subsequent videos I'll go over other stuff, but the first part I want to go
over is kind of like a preamble or some kind of points to remember hopefully.
The first part, which I think I just alluded to a little bit,
basically is that a divorce in California, I mean
they vary obviously, like no two, no two divorces are exactly the same,
but I guess the process overall is just a checklist.
So if you can imagine a checklist of tasks that you have to do
in order to accomplish a goal. You need to
basically, for example, if you're running a marathon, you need to,
you know, buy some shoes, you need to wake up early, you need to eat right, train,
you need to build a schedule about "oh, hey, you know, this week I'm going to run
5miles, then 10 miles, then 15, blah, blah."
So a checklist kind of like that applies to divorces also.
So, um, the items on this checklist is going to, like,
the items rather, are going to depend based on what the facts of your case
are. So, for instance, if you have minor children your checklist will look
different than somebody who doesn't have minor children, let's say. Uh,
because minor children, you have to talk about custody, visitation, child support,
etc. So once all of these items on this
proverbial checklist, er sorry, this metaphorical
checklist rather are basically resolved somehow,
then it's going to be something where that item can be checked off and you
move on to the next item. Once all the items are done, then you're
going to get hopefully, hopefully get a signed
judgment, a signed FL-180. I've harped about this on my channel
before. I actually have a video on this also. I'll link that up there,
but in order to have a divorce be done in California,
you have to have a signed FL-180 -- Judicial Council form FL-180 --
signed by a judge. That is your proof that you are divorced. If you don't have
that and you just filed your case and kind of,
you know, sat back and thought that the divorce was automatically done,
that's, that's not the case. You have to have a signed
FL-180 form from the judge. That is your, um,
goal, I suppose, you know, if we're continuing the checklist kind of metaphor.
So, um, yeah, basically like that's, that's a checklist that you have to go through.
The checklist varies depending on the facts of your case.
The checklist is not personal, like it's not something where the court wants to
personally mess with you or the court hates you, the judge hates you, etc.
It is a checklist. It applies to everybody who's going through a divorce.
Once you finish the checklist, your divorce is done. That's basically
how it works. So how do you resolve the items on the checklist? That's point number
two in my kind of preamble, you know, preamble, uh,
kind of speech. So the items on the checklist you can
basically resolve in two ways. The first one is you negotiate with the
other party, the other spouse in your case
"okay, for the, for the debt, this is how I propose to, to divide it, what do you
think, etc, etc?" So, um, if you are in a divorce, you know,
as you can probably guess, negotiation, I think you guys have
probably tried that or a lot of people in that situation
probably have tried that. You're in divorce court because it has not worked,
like the negotiation has not worked. So, um, negotiation, obviously there is no
kind of foolproof or kind of guaranteed way to do it.
You have to, I hate to say, fly by the seat of your pants, but it is something where
you do kind of, you know, have to improvise a little bit
based on the facts and situation, based on the feedback you're getting,
you know, based on how the other party reacts, blah, blah. Negotiation is kind of
improvisational by definition. So when you negotiate, obviously, you want
to consider your pros, your cons, your costs, your benefits, what your best
alternative is if the negotiation fails, and so on. If that doesn't work,
like if negotiation doesn't work, and you really have tried your best, I suppose,
the only other option is trial and that basically involves having the court
decide how the debt is going to be divided, the court will decide
who gets the kids, the court will decide what child support is, and so on.
So if you want to do it that way, you certainly can.
In some, in some cases, like I said, like it is kind of unavoidable that you have to
have the court decide it because negotiation just
does not work. Here's the thing: if you are going to go to trial like
just kind of know what's involved in it. Know the cost.
the financial costs, know the, the time required
and also know that, basically, a lot of judges, well I shouldn't say a lot of judges.
It's not a guarantee, let's put it that way. It's not a guarantee that the judge
will view your case in the same way that you view
your case. So it's something where, I guess, to put it this way,
a lot of people overestimate how likely the judge is to agree with them.
So, you know, the judge basically -- I mean judges, by definition, are impartial -- they
are, uh, people who look at the facts, the law,
you know, the evidence and so on. So, um, just, you have to put yourself in
the judge's shoes, like basically "okay, I feel
that my case is strong for all these reasons. If I step back and look at my
case objectively, though, pretend I'm, you know, if I pretend I'm the judge, what
would I think? Like if I kind of step back from the case and kind of look at
it dispassionately, what would I think about the case? You
know, would I rule for me, for example? I think more people probably should do
that because a lot of times judges basically rule differently and, you know,
um, a trial oftentimes will leave both parties
dissatisfied in some, in some way. So, um, yeah hopefully that
kind of makes sense. Certainly don't mean to, you know,
convince you not to go to trial. Trial, by definition, is what courts are for, I
guess. But, um, you should not kind of, uh -- what's
the word -- cavalierly, I guess, uh, or casually kind of commit to a trial.
Trials do involve a lot of work, expense and you have to make sure that it's all
worth it. That's all. So, um, that's point number two.
Point number three, um, there is only one divorce
process in California. So the thing is if you kind of think "oh, well, hey, you know, I
can pay some more money and kind of jump the line or
get special treatment or something" that's not how it works. Uh at the end of
these videos, hopefully you should see that
the, um, kind of the divorce process is. Yeah like it's the same for everybody.
That said, however, I will kind of, you know, explain that there are ways to make
the process go faster and the analogy that I'll draw basically
is for air travel. So if you're gonna fly from like, you
know, San Francisco to New York or, you know, LA to Chicago or something,
uh, you could fly commercial, of course, like, go to the airport, stand in line, you
know, check your baggage, etc. Or if you can
afford it, you can fly private like, you know, you can buy fractional
one -- number one, you can buy a plane. Uh if you, if you do buy a plane, let me know --
but, um, if you, if you can't afford to buy a plane, maybe you have a fractional
plane or something. Basically you can fly private and bypass
the normal chaos, I guess, that comes with commercial air travel.
So the divorce process in California kind of works the same way.
You have the normal process, the public process, you know, the "commercial airline"
kind of version where basically everybody goes to court
and like, you know, they file paperwork and like everybody gets kind of equal
that way, but if you are, for example, a celebrity
or if you're a professional athlete and, you know, you're a tech executive and
you kind of would appear in gossip newspapers or gossip websites, for
example, maybe you don't want to file your case
the normal way because you might have to disclose your finances, disclose all this
personal information. That stuff could end up on a gossip
website. It could end up on, you know, social media or something
and maybe if you're a celebrity, you know, like a famous person,
you don't want your personal information kind of floating out there.
So if you are that like, you know, you can go through the private process
also. That's the private, you know, private plane sort of analogy
but, um, yeah. So the thing is the rules for the private process
are the same like, you know, you just have to basically pay for your own judge.
You can hire something called a Private Judge and you can finish the case that
way and so on. So, um, that's the basic idea. There's one
process, but there's at least two different ways to actually do it.
Uh, usually it's financial kind of motivation that causes one party to,
causes parties, rather, to want to do the public process versus the private
process and so on. So, uh, yeah, that's point number three
Number four, point number four. This is just my own personal kind of
observation. If you are going to go through a divorce and you're the one who
files for a divorce, you need to be committed, you need to be
sure that this is the right course for you.
i mean nobody can answer that question. I certainly can't. Nobody can answer that
question for you except you. So whatever reasons, whatever kind of, you
know, benefit, you know, you kind of think will come
from getting a divorce, you need to be sure that that's what you want, you need
to be sure that what you're doing will help get you
there and so on. The reason is because divorces by definition
involve a lot of, you know, time, cost, emotional anguish, mental energy. It'll
have consequences for your family also. Um, you know, sometimes, you know, basically
divorced spouses get along fairly well afterwards. You know, they're better as
friends, etc, but a lot of times divorce spouses hate
each other, you know, for the rest of their lives.
Uh, if you have children, the divorce will affect your children also.
So whatever, you know, kind of decision you make, you just have to make sure that,
you know, basically a divorce is the correct one that you make that,
sorry, it's the correct course for you and like, you know, you're
committed to doing it. You know, you're going to persevere. You're not going to
give up, you know, whenever something bad happens or the other party says
that they want to reconcile or something. You need to be sure because
all of the kind of costs involved, like the financial, the emotional, the time,
the effects on your family. and so on. You need to make sure that
that is, I guess worth it. Um, you should not enter into a divorce cavalierly or
casually, for example, I guess, you know. That's all I'm trying to say. So,
um, hopefully that helps. So that's just the preamble part. I think
as I've kind of been speaking, I think I'm going to change my tactic a little
bit. Um so I'm going to end the video here. In
the next part, I'm going to go over the, probably, the petition stage as well as
the service of the petition. So it's, you know, two stages hopefully.
Yeah, so, in the next video, I'm going to go over
that so I will talk to you then. Thanks.