Founding Partner

“How long does a divorce case take in California? Well unfortunately they’re not that quick despite the best efforts of the attorneys, sometimes the parties, and oftentimes the court. What that means is that just like any other lawsuit, there are many things that have to be done before a case is ready to come to its conclusion.

Most of the cases, most of the divorce cases anyway, come to a conclusion by way of settlement; the parties agree on terms and they avoid a trial. But to get there, in order to settle, both parties have to understand what their rights are. Both parties have to understand what the marital estate looks like. There’s a lot of wrangling that goes on just to get to a settlement, that’s one delay.

The other is if you go the other route and you end your case by trial, meaning you’re going to get a trial date depending on how busy the court calendar is – that may not even happen for a year – but of course you can’t even get that trial date for a year in the future until you comply with all the other steps to be able to qualify to go to trial, like exchanging your disclosures and doing other mandatory things. Point is it’s a long process. It can be protracted.

The best way to keep it efficient and short is if you can do it, settle.”