It varies widely. Arizona has a mandatory waiting period (often referred to as a “cooling off” period) of 60 days from the date of service of the initial Petition of Dissolution, so a bare minimum of about 62 days (to allow time for receipt of the filed pleadings back from the Court and time to serve) must pass. Some divorces, with two parties who are irrationally committed to destroying one another, can drag out for years. Thankfully, that has only happened to our clients one or two times in over 35 years. If everyone can be respectful and calm, we settle most of our divorces in 90 days (from filing) or less.

Many, and they are immense. We often tell our clients “you can put your money into your children’s college fund, or you can put your money into our children’s college fund.” Property settlements in family law are truly algebraic. Be reasonable, and you will decide what happens in your case instead of a stranger called a “judge.” Your judge will spend a grand total of only a few hours ever thinking about you or your case. Trials are financially and emotionally expensive, risky, and remove your control over decisions. They also occur according to the Court’s calendar—not yours. Our average 90 days to completion on settled cases is more like six to 10 months if actively litigated. Let us help you to join the majority of our satisfied clients by resolving your case through a settlement conference or mediation.

Arizona has Child Support statutes, guidelines and software calculators to determine child support. Variables including the parties' gross monthly incomes, ages of and number of child(ren), health insurance premium payments, daycare expenses, and the amount of time each party spends with the child(ren)] are fed into the calculator, which then detremines the amount of the child support obligation.

It depends upon how we intend to proceed. If you are confident your spouse will be reasonable, we usually ask for a reasonable flat fee to settle your case. There is then no monthly billing statement and no hourly rate to worry about.

If your case devolves into a litigation case, we will redraw our fee agreement and then charge our normal hourly rates. You will then receive a detailed monthly billing statement clearly explaining every charge going forward.

Family law is the type of law that we spend most of our time on.

Perhaps. It is heavily dependent upon the disparity of your income and that of your spouse, and the duration of your marriage.

Yes, and then some. We have tried hundreds of cases. It is important to remember that the average divorce trial is measured in hours, not days or weeks like most other trials. It is tried to a Judge, never a jury. Divorce trails occur at a surprisingly swift pace.

All calls will be returned on the same day barring emergency. Email is actually preferred for most communication. Texts are common, but not our chosen option as we want to upload emails to your electronic file and texts make that more difficult. For particularly complicated or emotional communications we may ask you to come to our office to meet in person.

Surprisingly, this is a very common question. Unfortunately, answering this question is not our forte. If your marriage is unhappy and unrewarding with no light at the end of the tunnel, it seems even sadder to continue on that path. We highly recommend that a good marriage counselor should be your first stop—not a lawyer. Remember, divorces are not sad; unhappy marriages are sad. Divorce ends that sadness.

All community property (property acquired during the marriage that was not gifted or inherited), is divided “equitably.” Remember, this does not necessarily mean “equally.” An algebraic division means that sometimes one spouse will get more assets to equalize more liabilities. Any property you had before the marriage (sole and separate property) remains yours.

This almost always requires the preparation of a “Qualified Domestic Relations Order,” or “QDRO”—pronounced “Quad-row.” This is a specialized court order which requires, in the specifically appropriate language of your retirement plan administrator, a tax-free division and re-allocation of the retirement fund into separate retirement accounts for each spouse.