Articles Posted in Discovery

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Understanding Legal Terms When You’re Going Through a Divorce

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When you face divorce, many factors add to the stress and anxiety you face. One thing that can make the process more challenging is trying to understand all the legal jargon associated with the proceedings. Once you grasp a basic understanding of the terms you hear, the process seems slightly less overwhelming. The terminology described here will help you interpret the phrases you encounter along the way. It is conveniently organized for you under three primary categories.

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How Is Communal Property Divided?

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When going through a divorce, several things need to be determined, such as child custody, spousal support, and the division of property. Disentangling your life from another person’s can be difficult for several reasons. When you live together for several years, there is a lot that is shared between both partners. For instance, figuring out how to navigate relationships with mutual friends can be an extremely complicated undertaking. While this is something that you’ll have to settle amongst yourselves, matters involving communal property are settled by the courts. But what types of property are considered communal, and how does the judge decide how it should all be divided?

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Everything You Need to Know About Annulments

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Although they happen often, annulments are often misunderstood. Media and popular culture promote a number of diverse yet equally inaccurate representations of this process, making it difficult for most people to recognize the truth of this legal concept. If you are unsatisfied with your relationship or discover new information that drastically impacts the validity of your marriage, call our firm. California law allows you to receive an annulment if you follow a certain legal process and meet specific criteria.
  
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AdobeStock_151263740-300x200Once the initial paperwork in a divorce proceeding is filed, both parties must complete what is called a “Preliminary Declaration of Disclosure.”  This disclosure mainly consists of two documents, the first is the party’s “Schedule of Assets and Debts” and the second is the party’s “Income and Expense Declaration.”  Just as the names imply, these forms are designed to gather information related to each parties’ assets, debts, income, and expenses.  In addition to being mandatory, these disclosures are due early on in the case and are extremely important as they will be the framework for which a settlement, if possible, is reached. Continue reading

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It is no secret that the San Diego Family Law Courts are overutilized, overworked, and overbooked.  When a party files a motion with the court it can often take several months, or longer, to get a hearing date!  This can be frustrating for litigants who want to move their case forward towards closure.  But what happens when an emergency comes up in your case and you cannot wait months for a hearing date?  Luckily, there is a procedure and solution to allow the court to hear an emergency issue within a day or two, and that is called an “Ex Parte” hearing.  At an Ex Parte hearing, judges can make temporary emergency orders, when appropriate.

Pursuant to California Rules of Court, Rule 5.151(b), “[t]he purpose of a request for emergency orders is to address matters that cannot be heard on the court’s regular hearing calendar….[and] the process is used to request that the court: Continue reading

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Discovery is not the first topic that comes to mind when parties meet with a family law attorney for the first time.  In fact, there is a good chance most litigants have no idea what discovery actually is.  Sure, anyone who watches any of the serialized crime dramas on TV has heard of a subpoena, but most people have no idea what they are why they are useful.

In a nutshell, discovery is the process of collection evidence, whether that evidence comes in the form of documents, statements, testimony, or information.  There are several types of discovery a party can issue.  Which method a party chooses depends on what type of evidence they are looking to obtain.  This blog will briefly describe the most common forms of discovery used in family law cases. Continue reading

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Appeals can be a lengthy, difficult, and expensive process. In fact, most civil appeals in the Fourth District Court of Appeals, Division One (San Diego) take about a year from start to finish. If a trial court’s error is the result of a minor oversight or a mathematical error, it might be a better idea to simply direct the Court’s attention to the oversight or error than go through the trouble of an appeal. In our experience, judges have been almost universally open to correcting these kinds of minor oversights or errors at the trial level, particularly if the oversight or error resulted from the judge’s own mistake.

It is very important, therefore, for one to use the proper procedures. There are two procedures that come to mind. The first is a motion pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure 473(d), which is designed to allow for the correction of clerical mistakes. Code of Civil Procedure section 473(d) reads as follows: Continue reading

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Personal health is a very important aspect of our lives, but for some reason we do not seem to give it as much thought as we should until that health is compromised.  It is cold and flu season right now and many of you reading this have either had a cold this year, or are going to catch one in the near future.  To those readers who will avoid getting sick this year, please tell us your secrets because we want to know. 

Getting the cold or the flu is not the “health” I am referring to in this blog.  When I discuss health, I am referring to long-term or chronic health issues such as Lyme’s disease.  This also includes mental health issues such as clinical depression, as well as physical disabilities like carpel tunnel syndrome or paraplegia.  These chronic health issues are all very different, but they do have one thing in common; they often impact a person’s ability to work. Continue reading

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Many parties choose to have their divorce cases mediated by a professional mediator. This can have many valuable benefits. It can be cheaper, less stressful, and much quicker than your typical adversarial divorce. All other things being equal, working together is preferred to working against one another.

Any party who chooses to use mediation should be aware of the mediation privilege. The mediation privilege makes it impossible (absent certain limited exceptions) for one party to compel the production of documents or testimony of the other party or the mediator as long as that other party and the mediator invoke the mediation privilege. If one party is trying to set aside a judgment because of false or fraudulent statements made by the other party, the mediation privilege can be a significant impediment to that goal.

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The rules of evidence can be challenging. Understanding it is a skill that must be honed and refined, which is what we try to do at Bickford Blado & Botros. In this blog, we will discuss two of the most important evidentiary privileges and their importance in family law cases: the physician-patient privilege and the psychotherapist-patient privilege.

Statements made from an adult to their treating physicians/psychotherapists are absolutely protected from privilege, unless the issue is tendered or waived. Continue reading

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