Colorado Divorce Laws

Mediation can often save the client money. The mediator has their hourly fee, of course the attorneys do as well. But mediation can last (4) hours, it can last (2) hours, it can last the whole day. And the nice thing about mediation is that you’re not spending time preparing witnesses, preparing trial exhibits, preparing for a trial.

Really where the bulk of the costs come in are preparing for trial. To the extent that you can settle things out in mediation. And understanding that there’s still preparation for mediation. You will save yourselves a lot of money by going through that process and coming out of it successfully.

By: Scott Goldman

What is child custody based on in Colorado? Child custody is based on a standard – a legal standard – called “What is in the best interest of the children“? And Child custody includes two pieces. It includes parenting time and it includes decision-making. And also, of course, there’s child support that needs to be dealt with. So how is that determined? Essentially, you’ll either agree to those things, in other words, you’ll have the children, let’s just say, 50% of the time – 50% of the overnights a year. Your ex-spouse will also have the children 50% of the time, or 50% of the overnights for the year.

Or certainly we have clients where they take a stand that for reasons of stability or reasons where someone has a job that requires them to travel all the time, that they have less child custody. So the parenting time might most of the time with one parent – the primary parent – and then the other parent might have every other weekend per se with the children. Child custody is either going to be determined, like I said, by you and your spouse or it’s going to be determined by the court if you can’t come to an agreement on that. The court is going to look at what’s in the best interest of the children. The court’s not – I know this is hard – but the court’s not interested at all in you or your spouse. They’re not. That’s not their charge. Their charge is what’s in the best interest of the children.

So it behooves you when you’re sitting down and maybe talking about a child custody issue in the case of a divorce, what is in the best interest of the children in terms of parenting time? What is in the best interest of the children in terms of decision-making? In other words, should decisions all be made by both of you together – joint decision making – or are there some decisions that one or the other of you should make because you can see down the line that there may be real problems associated with trying to come to agreement.

Mostly I see this in the area of wanting the children to go to therapy. One parent believes in therapy, the other parent doesn’t. Or medical issues. We’ve seen children with attention deficit syndrome. One parent believes in medication, the other parent doesn’t. So you can see down the line that there might be issues regarding decision-making.

One of the exceptions to joint decision-making that the court will impose has to do with domestic abuse. If there is domestic abuse in your relationship, then the court will not allow joint decision-making because there’s an imbalance of power between the two parties.  So you can see, there’s some complexities here. But the decision the court will make will always be based on that standard – the best interest of the children – and it will be the judge’s opinion about what’s in the best interest of the children.

So if you can’t come to an agreement, you’re essentially handing that, let’s just say subjective decision to someone else, and hopefully the judge will make a good decision on that for you if you can’t do that yourselves.

By: Leslie Matthews

One question I commonly get is from the people who’ve just been served with divorce papers. And the question typically is, I’ve just been served with divorce papers, should I sign the documents that my spouse’s attorney sent me? And the short answer is, no, don’t do it.

Talk to an attorney first. If your spouse already has an attorney it doesn’t matter how amicable things seem like they’re going to be, you’re better off seeking your own counsel. You’re not going to know all of the details of the divorce, and you may not be familiar with what rights you may be signing away. So in order to protect your rights, my advice is, Call an attorney. If you want to call me we can discuss the situation, I can listen to what the other attorney is proposing and if it’s fair and equitable I may be able to suggest to you, Sure, go ahead and sign it.

By: Ray Chamberland

An uncontested divorce is the best kind of divorce, to be honest with you. It means that there’s nothing that you’re fighting over, that you have to court for, and have a judge make a determination on. In other words, you’ve gone through your divorce process, but you and your spouse have been able to reach agreement on all of the important factors in your divorce. That includes your parenting plan, all of the issues surrounding how you’re going to deal with the children, all of the issues surrounding child support, maintenance, if that’s important in the case. And you’re able then to go to court with your final agreements and the judge essentially is going to just agree to what you’ve agreed to, unless there is something completely onerous or wrong with it.

In most cases, the judge will rubber stamp what you’ve agreed to. You may or may not have to go in and see the judge for a final hearing, that depends on whether or not you have attorneys, and whether there are child issues involved. But in most cases you’ll be able to avoid going to court altogether and your divorce agreement will become an order of the court just as written. And that would be an uncontested divorce. A contested divorce means that there’s something that you’re going to have to have the judge decide, and you’re going to have to go to court to have the judge decide that. And that the distinction between the two.

By: Leslie Matthews