Arizona Divorce Laws

How Long Will My Divorce Take to be Final and How Much Will I…

Mitchell Reichman

 

Hi. I’m Mitch Reichman. I’m a state board of Arizona certified specialist in family law, and I practice at Jaburg and Wilk.

How long will it take for my divorce to be final?

The amount of time it takes for your divorce to be finale is different in everyone’s case. It’s driven by a number of factors. The first is whether other professionals need to be brought into the case, such as custody evaluators or business appraisers. They are the major factor in terms of how long it will take your divorce to be finale, is whether your case goes to trial.  If we resolve your case short of trial, it will typically take less time. If we have to go to trial, then we have to deal with the judge’s calendar. Most judges are setting trails three to six months out, so by the time you know you need to go to trial you might wait another three to six months, and your case might not be resolved for over a year.

How much in attorney fees will I incur in my divorce?

The amount of attorney’s fees you incur in your divorce largely depends on the reasonableness of the positions that each party takes during the course of the proceedings. If your case is a high conflict case and where people take unreasonable positions, it will take longer for us to help you through the process, and therefore you incur more in fees. Truly is impossible to predict in the beginning of your case how much you’re going to incur in attorney’s fees, because we don’t know what positions the other side is going to take. As your case develops, as we get information, we’ll at some point have a good idea of how much you’ll incur in fees and be able to predict that for you.

By: Mitchell Reichman

Hi. I’m Mitch Reichman. I’m a state board of Arizona certified specialist in family law, and I practice at Jaburg and Wilk.

How long will it take for my divorce to be final?

The amount of time it takes for your divorce to be finale is different in everyone’s case. It’s driven by a number of factors. The first is whether other professionals need to be brought into the case, such as custody evaluators or business appraisers. They are the major factor in terms of how long it will take your divorce to be finale, is whether your case goes to trial.  If we resolve your case short of trial, it will typically take less time. If we have to go to trial, then we have to deal with the judge’s calendar. Most judges are setting trails three to six months out, so by the time you know you need to go to trial you might wait another three to six months, and your case might not be resolved for over a year.

How much in attorney fees will I incur in my divorce?

The amount of attorney’s fees you incur in your divorce largely depends on the reasonableness of the positions that each party takes during the course of the proceedings. If your case is a high conflict case and where people take unreasonable positions, it will take longer for us to help you through the process, and therefore you incur more in fees. Truly is impossible to predict in the beginning of your case how much you’re going to incur in attorney’s fees, because we don’t know what positions the other side is going to take. As your case develops, as we get information, we’ll at some point have a good idea of how much you’ll incur in fees and be able to predict that for you.

By: Mitchell Reichman

Opting Out of Famility Dispute Through Arbitration | Arizona

Mitchell Reichman

 

What is Opting Out?

Hi. My name is Mitchell Reichman. I’m a board certified specialist in family law and chair of the family law department at Jaburg & Wilk. Opting out is choosing to resolve a family law dispute outside the traditional judicial system. One of the ways parties can choose to opt out is by choosing to arbitrate.

What is Arbitration?

Arbitration is a voluntary process. It’s beyond the jurisdiction of a judge to order parties to arbitrate. However, once parties do decide to arbitrate, a court order will be entered that appoints the arbitrator and governs the process. Generally in Arizona, arbitrations are governed by a set of statutes known as Arizona’s Arbitration Act. One of the advantages of arbitration is that the parties can choose the neutral that serves as the arbitrator based on the parties’ circumstances, particularly where the issues are specialized such as with the valuation of a business or professional practice. The parties can chose an arbitrator who has a greater amount of education, training, and experience than the judge randomly assigned to their case. This gives the parties the opportunity to obtain a more predictable outcome because the arbitrator is familiar with the issues that will be presented in a valuation analysis, and the judge might not be. An important difference between choosing to arbitrate a dispute as compared to a trial concerns the right to appeal.

Can You Appeal an Arbitration Decision?

Under Arizona’s Arbitration Act, people who choose to arbitrate have very limited rights to appeal the decision of the arbitrator. This is very dissimilar from their rights to appeal should a judge make the decision after a trial on the merits. Overall, however, in many cases we find that by choosing to opt out through a process of arbitration, we’re able to reach our goal of helping our clients obtain a more favorable result in their family law proceeding.

By: Mitchell Reichman

What is Opting Out?

Hi. My name is Mitchell Reichman. I’m a board certified specialist in family law and chair of the family law department at Jaburg & Wilk. Opting out is choosing to resolve a family law dispute outside the traditional judicial system. One of the ways parties can choose to opt out is by choosing to arbitrate.

What is Arbitration?

Arbitration is a voluntary process. It’s beyond the jurisdiction of a judge to order parties to arbitrate. However, once parties do decide to arbitrate, a court order will be entered that appoints the arbitrator and governs the process. Generally in Arizona, arbitrations are governed by a set of statutes known as Arizona’s Arbitration Act. One of the advantages of arbitration is that the parties can choose the neutral that serves as the arbitrator based on the parties’ circumstances, particularly where the issues are specialized such as with the valuation of a business or professional practice. The parties can chose an arbitrator who has a greater amount of education, training, and experience than the judge randomly assigned to their case. This gives the parties the opportunity to obtain a more predictable outcome because the arbitrator is familiar with the issues that will be presented in a valuation analysis, and the judge might not be. An important difference between choosing to arbitrate a dispute as compared to a trial concerns the right to appeal.

Can You Appeal an Arbitration Decision?

Under Arizona’s Arbitration Act, people who choose to arbitrate have very limited rights to appeal the decision of the arbitrator. This is very dissimilar from their rights to appeal should a judge make the decision after a trial on the merits. Overall, however, in many cases we find that by choosing to opt out through a process of arbitration, we’re able to reach our goal of helping our clients obtain a more favorable result in their family law proceeding.

By: Mitchell Reichman

Impact of Affair on Divorce Case | Arizona Family Law

Laurence B. Hirsch

 

Does a Spousal Affair Affect my Divorce Case?

Hi. My name is Larry Hirsch, and I practise exclusively in the domestic relations group at Jaburg & Wilk. First and foremost, the court doesn’t care about the affair that your spouse had. Our courts are not in the business of making moral judgments, i.e. who slept with who, when they slept with who. More often than not, an affair during the marriage does not come into play during your divorce proceeding.

When Can an Affair have an Impact on the Case?

There are two occasions where an affair can actually have an impact on your case. The first one is when there was waste, that’s also called dissipation. For example, let’s just call it “Husband” for the time being, and Husband was having an affair for the better part of two years during the marriage, and during that affair, Husband was buying his paramour, or his girlfriend, fur coats, diamond rings, taking her on lavish vacations, maybe he helped pay a car. Well, in this situation, where the community income or the earnings of Husband was community, that would be considered community waste, so we’re going to want to take a look at all the bank statements, all the credit card statements, and we are going to take a detailed review as to all of the money that the spouse who is having the affair spent on that other individual. Now, the spouse who is not having the affair is entitled to one half reimbursement of those funds that was spent by the spouse who is having an affair. So, to make it really simplistic, if during the marriage Husband had a paramour, and he bought her a diamond ring valued at $10,000, and we can prove and show the receipt – and possibly even the ring – then the spouse who did not spend that money is entitled to reimbursement of $5000 in that situation.

The other situation where an affair may come into play is if the two parties are unfortunately fighting for custody of the minor children or the minor child. And it doesn’t really come into play that mom or dad was having an affair, but the issue really becomes the judgement of that parent when they were having the affair, so if mom or dad was simply dating somebody else, the court’s not really going to view it as that big of a deal. On the other hand, if, let’s say, mom was going out seven nights a week when she should have been at home doing the children’s homework, if dad was out spending thousands of dollars on vacations for his girlfriend while his children couldn’t afford books at school, the court’s going to look at those types of judgement calls, and it may come into play during a custodial fight in a divorce.

By: Laurence B. Hirsch

Does a Spousal Affair Affect my Divorce Case?

Hi. My name is Larry Hirsch, and I practise exclusively in the domestic relations group at Jaburg & Wilk. First and foremost, the court doesn’t care about the affair that your spouse had. Our courts are not in the business of making moral judgments, i.e. who slept with who, when they slept with who. More often than not, an affair during the marriage does not come into play during your divorce proceeding.

When Can an Affair have an Impact on the Case?

There are two occasions where an affair can actually have an impact on your case. The first one is when there was waste, that’s also called dissipation. For example, let’s just call it “Husband” for the time being, and Husband was having an affair for the better part of two years during the marriage, and during that affair, Husband was buying his paramour, or his girlfriend, fur coats, diamond rings, taking her on lavish vacations, maybe he helped pay a car. Well, in this situation, where the community income or the earnings of Husband was community, that would be considered community waste, so we’re going to want to take a look at all the bank statements, all the credit card statements, and we are going to take a detailed review as to all of the money that the spouse who is having the affair spent on that other individual. Now, the spouse who is not having the affair is entitled to one half reimbursement of those funds that was spent by the spouse who is having an affair. So, to make it really simplistic, if during the marriage Husband had a paramour, and he bought her a diamond ring valued at $10,000, and we can prove and show the receipt – and possibly even the ring – then the spouse who did not spend that money is entitled to reimbursement of $5000 in that situation.

The other situation where an affair may come into play is if the two parties are unfortunately fighting for custody of the minor children or the minor child. And it doesn’t really come into play that mom or dad was having an affair, but the issue really becomes the judgement of that parent when they were having the affair, so if mom or dad was simply dating somebody else, the court’s not really going to view it as that big of a deal. On the other hand, if, let’s say, mom was going out seven nights a week when she should have been at home doing the children’s homework, if dad was out spending thousands of dollars on vacations for his girlfriend while his children couldn’t afford books at school, the court’s going to look at those types of judgement calls, and it may come into play during a custodial fight in a divorce.

By: Laurence B. Hirsch

How Long Does a Legal Separation Take | Arizona

Michael Clancy

 

Legal separation can take a number of months. It can actually take longer than that, but the minimum time in Arizona is sixty days, which is the exact same as a divorce. So, if you were hoping for a quicker disposition of your legal separation, unfortunately you are not able to do that any faster than you would a divorce. But, that’s not the only reason to consider a legal separation. Each case is different. Each case is unique and we’d love the opportunity to talk about that with you. If you’d like more information, contact me.

By: Attorney Michael Clancy

Legal separation can take a number of months. It can actually take longer than that, but the minimum time in Arizona is sixty days, which is the exact same as a divorce. So, if you were hoping for a quicker disposition of your legal separation, unfortunately you are not able to do that any faster than you would a divorce. But, that’s not the only reason to consider a legal separation. Each case is different. Each case is unique and we’d love the opportunity to talk about that with you. If you’d like more information, contact me.

By: Attorney Michael Clancy

Are Prenuptial Agreements Enforceable in Arizona?

Michael Clancy

 

Prenuptial agreements are generally enforceable in Arizona courts. There are some pre-requisites though that are required before a prenuptial agreement can be enforced by a court. Number one, the court has to find that it was in writing and made in contemplation of marriage. Secondly, it can’t be unconscionable. If it’s unconscionable, that means it’s not fair, certain requirements weren’t made for financial disclosure or the waiver of financial disclosures, or that the provisions of the agreement were repugnant to the sense of justice. Each case is uniquely different and we’d be happy to look at your case individually. If you’d like to talk to us more about that, feel free to email me.

By: Attorney Michael Clancy

Prenuptial agreements are generally enforceable in Arizona courts. There are some pre-requisites though that are required before a prenuptial agreement can be enforced by a court. Number one, the court has to find that it was in writing and made in contemplation of marriage. Secondly, it can’t be unconscionable. If it’s unconscionable, that means it’s not fair, certain requirements weren’t made for financial disclosure or the waiver of financial disclosures, or that the provisions of the agreement were repugnant to the sense of justice. Each case is uniquely different and we’d be happy to look at your case individually. If you’d like to talk to us more about that, feel free to email me.

By: Attorney Michael Clancy

What Does Dissolution of Marriage & Serving the Petition Mean | Phoenix Divorce Attorney

Jason Castle

 

Introduction

My name is Jason Castle. I’m an attorney at Jaburg Wilk and my practice areas are family law and criminal defense.

Petition for Dissolution of Marriage

A petition for dissolution of marriage is the initial formal document that starts the legal proceeding. The petition will typically set forth the jurisdiction, which gives the court the power and authority to rule on your issues. Then, it will set forth the issues that you have outstanding.

For example, if you have children you’re going to include that you want decision making power, you want parenting time. It will also set forth what you’re wanting as a final resolution. In a divorce action you’re wanting to get divorced, so you want the marriage to be dissolved.

Serving a Petition

To serve a petition is actually a formal process. In a general sense, it’s to make sure that the opposing party has notice of the action. I get a lot of clients that come in and they want to just hand the other spouse the documents and they think that that’s service. That is not effective legal service. Legal service requires a service processor who is certified to either serve it or for a person to waive service, which is a form they would sign and it would be filed with the court.

By: Jason Castle

Introduction

My name is Jason Castle. I’m an attorney at Jaburg Wilk and my practice areas are family law and criminal defense.

Petition for Dissolution of Marriage

A petition for dissolution of marriage is the initial formal document that starts the legal proceeding. The petition will typically set forth the jurisdiction, which gives the court the power and authority to rule on your issues. Then, it will set forth the issues that you have outstanding.

For example, if you have children you’re going to include that you want decision making power, you want parenting time. It will also set forth what you’re wanting as a final resolution. In a divorce action you’re wanting to get divorced, so you want the marriage to be dissolved.

Serving a Petition

To serve a petition is actually a formal process. In a general sense, it’s to make sure that the opposing party has notice of the action. I get a lot of clients that come in and they want to just hand the other spouse the documents and they think that that’s service. That is not effective legal service. Legal service requires a service processor who is certified to either serve it or for a person to waive service, which is a form they would sign and it would be filed with the court.

By: Jason Castle

Can I Appeal My Divorce Decree | Arizona

Kathi Sandweiss

 

Hi, I’m Kathi Sandweiss. I’m an appellate lawyer here at Jaburg and Wilk.

Can a divorce be appealed?

You can appeal really any of your issues that you disputed in your divorce decree, assuming obviously that you didn’t stipulate to your divorce decree. But assuming that there’s been a decree entered after some sort of a conflict – an adversarial proceeding – there’s no reason you can’t appeal.   The time for appeal is the same – 30 days – just as in a civil case.  And the kinds of things that we see people appealing in a divorce are: child custody arrangements, valuation of businesses, amount of spousal maintenance, amount of child support. Any of the things that you might be disputing in your divorce, if you’re unhappy with the result, certainly they can be appealed.  A trial lawyer will be looking for the facts, will be helping you through your case, and trying the case. An appeal is based on the record already made in the trial court.

Will you work with my current divorce attorney?

We like to work with the trial lawyers, including the divorce lawyers and certainly, we have no intention of stealing back your case after the case is decided on appeal. The hope for you, if we’re representing you as the appellant, is to have the matter remanded to the trial court, and at that point, then your divorce will proceed in the trial court.  Not only that, but we really like to have your trial lawyer’s input and have him or her review our briefs before they’re filed.

By: Kathi Sandweiss

Hi, I’m Kathi Sandweiss. I’m an appellate lawyer here at Jaburg and Wilk.

Can a divorce be appealed?

You can appeal really any of your issues that you disputed in your divorce decree, assuming obviously that you didn’t stipulate to your divorce decree. But assuming that there’s been a decree entered after some sort of a conflict – an adversarial proceeding – there’s no reason you can’t appeal.   The time for appeal is the same – 30 days – just as in a civil case.  And the kinds of things that we see people appealing in a divorce are: child custody arrangements, valuation of businesses, amount of spousal maintenance, amount of child support. Any of the things that you might be disputing in your divorce, if you’re unhappy with the result, certainly they can be appealed.  A trial lawyer will be looking for the facts, will be helping you through your case, and trying the case. An appeal is based on the record already made in the trial court.

Will you work with my current divorce attorney?

We like to work with the trial lawyers, including the divorce lawyers and certainly, we have no intention of stealing back your case after the case is decided on appeal. The hope for you, if we’re representing you as the appellant, is to have the matter remanded to the trial court, and at that point, then your divorce will proceed in the trial court.  Not only that, but we really like to have your trial lawyer’s input and have him or her review our briefs before they’re filed.

By: Kathi Sandweiss

Do I Need a Reason to Get a Divorce | Scottsdale Divorce Law

Chris Hildebrand

 

Divorce in Scottsdale

Hello, I want to speak to you today about whether you need a reason for obtaining a divorce in the state of Arizona. Arizona is a no fault divorce state, which means that other than alleging the marriage is irretrievably broken, you do not have to state a reason or prove a reason to obtain a divorce in Arizona. If you have any other questions regarding the need to file for divorce or questions regarding divorce or legal separation, please feel free to contact me.

By: Chris Hildebrand

Divorce in Scottsdale

Hello, I want to speak to you today about whether you need a reason for obtaining a divorce in the state of Arizona. Arizona is a no fault divorce state, which means that other than alleging the marriage is irretrievably broken, you do not have to state a reason or prove a reason to obtain a divorce in Arizona. If you have any other questions regarding the need to file for divorce or questions regarding divorce or legal separation, please feel free to contact me.

By: Chris Hildebrand

What Does the Court Consider During a Divorce Case | Tempe Divorce Laws

Douglas Gardner

 

Divorce Case in Tempe Courts

For divorce cases in Arizona, the court is required to enter orders as to three basic issues, or even better, if the parties can reach an agreement on those issues, the court can adopt that agreement as the court order.

Parenting Time

The first issue is the parenting-time arrangement. This agreement should include which parent will have the child during the week, which parent will have the child on weekends, how the children will be divided up for the holidays, and other issues as to the transportation and the division of the children.

Legal Decision Making

The second issue that the court will look at is the legal decision-making for the children. In Arizona, generally the court will give both parties joint legal decision-making, which means that both parties should be involved in making major medical decisions, major educational decisions, and major religious decisions. Only in rare circumstances will the court give one person sole legal decision making of those major decisions for the child.

Child Support

The final issue is child support. In Arizona, we have a guideline adopted by the Arizona Supreme Court that gives us an opportunity to based on your income, the other party’s income, and several other factors we can figure out based on that formula real close what the court is likely to order for child support in each case.

If you’d like more information regarding child related issues in your divorce case please contact me at (480) 733-6800 or you can reach us online.

By: Attorney Douglas Gardner

Divorce Case in Tempe Courts

For divorce cases in Arizona, the court is required to enter orders as to three basic issues, or even better, if the parties can reach an agreement on those issues, the court can adopt that agreement as the court order.

Parenting Time

The first issue is the parenting-time arrangement. This agreement should include which parent will have the child during the week, which parent will have the child on weekends, how the children will be divided up for the holidays, and other issues as to the transportation and the division of the children.

Legal Decision Making

The second issue that the court will look at is the legal decision-making for the children. In Arizona, generally the court will give both parties joint legal decision-making, which means that both parties should be involved in making major medical decisions, major educational decisions, and major religious decisions. Only in rare circumstances will the court give one person sole legal decision making of those major decisions for the child.

Child Support

The final issue is child support. In Arizona, we have a guideline adopted by the Arizona Supreme Court that gives us an opportunity to based on your income, the other party’s income, and several other factors we can figure out based on that formula real close what the court is likely to order for child support in each case.

If you’d like more information regarding child related issues in your divorce case please contact me at (480) 733-6800 or you can reach us online.

By: Attorney Douglas Gardner

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