Getting a Divorce? A Legal Guide

STEP 3: Discovery.
In order to make more long-term decisions, the court requires more detailed information. To that end, both parties go through the discovery process. Both spouses gather all necessary information to negotiate the issues in question. Discovery can be informal, where material is collected via letters and phone calls. Or it can be formal, which involves interrogatories, depositions and other sworn testimony.  

Much of discovery typically focuses on financial matters. In addition to answering questions about assets, both parties usually are asked to produce documents such as bank statements, credit-card bills, receipts, tax returns, paycheck stubs, etc. The goal is to ensure that neither party is hiding assets that should be equitably divided between the couple.  Attorneys usually prepare their clients for depositions and other legal proceedings so they know what to expect.  

Other individuals -- friends, relatives, accountants, employers -- who have relevant information might be interviewed during discovery. It also is not uncommon for parties to hire experts during the discovery process to help determine contested issues, such as property division or child custody. With the information gleaned during discovery, both parties and their representatives then attempt to reach an agreement, or settlement, on the issues in question. Some settlements may include confidentiality agreements, particularly if the case involves a lot of money or an affair or information that one party does not want known publicly. If a settlement cannot be reached, then the divorce proceeds to trial. 


STEP 4: What happens in the divorce trial. 
Once in the divorce courtroom, each party’s lawyer makes the case for what his or her client is entitled to. Arguments for both sides are presented, as evidence, depositions or witness testimony. The divorce process, especially when the marriage dissolution is strenuously contested, can often last for a year a more.  Remember that if a court has required you to do certain things as part of the divorce settlement, the court can check to make certain those things have been done -- and can hold you in contempt if they are not. This can become particularly sticky in custody cases -- as in the recent case involving actress Britney Spears, for example.


STEP 5: Appealing the court's decisions. 
After the divorce is granted, either party has the right to appeal. An appellate court’s focus is not the original court’s conclusions, but whether the trial judge made a legal error that affected the outcome. An appeal can substantially lengthen, often by years, the time it takes for a divorce to be finalized. Because of that time factor, many of the issues and circumstances may have significantly changed by the time the case is sent back to the original jurisdiction for rehearing. In such cases, this essentially means a brand new beginning of the divorce case.



TO READ MORE:

Click here for a list of family law attorneys and divorce financial planners in your area.

Click here for a step-by-step legal guide for California divorce.

Click here for expert advice on how divorce court really works.

Click here to read a journal about the nine questions you must examine in mediation.

Click here to read a story about how to behave in divorce court.

Click here about what to expect from divorce court.

Click here to read a story about how to modify your divorce settlement.