REALIZE SIGNIFICANT COST SAVINGS IN DIVORCE AND FAMILY LAW CASES WITH UNBUNDLED LEGAL SERVICES OR LIMITED SCOPE REPRESENTATION

This blog addresses two cost-saving types or "scopes" of legal services that you can obtain to enable you to receive valuable guidance in your divorce or family law case and/or representation in specific issues or portions of your case from an experienced Family Law Attorney in areas where you require assistance, while not incurring the expense of full-service representation.

Those two scopes of services are Unbundled Legal Services and Limited Scope Representation.

"Unbundled Legal Services" are consultation services for a self-represented person by a lawyer who advises and assists you but doesn't represent you.  For details regarding Unbundled Legal Services, please click on any of the Unbundled Legal Services links in this blog.

"Limited Scope Representation" (or Limited Scope Legal Representation) is representation by a lawyer on a specific issue, or for a specific hearing or portion of your case, while you remain self-represented for the balance of issues and portions of your case.  For details regarding Limited Scope Representation, please click on any of the Limited Scope Representation links in this blog.

Both of those scopes of legal services enable people to save money while providing them quality legal advice and/or representation for crucial areas of their cases where they most need such assistance.

Unbundling and Limited Scope Representation afford you a la carte pricing.  You avoid having to pay the significant retainer fee required for full-service representation, and you avoid ongoing billings on things that the lawyer would have no choice but to handle with full-service representation.  You decide what you want to do yourself and what you want the lawyer to do.  That way, you can realize significant cost savings and greater control of your legal expenses, while obtaining legal assistance on things that you are ill-prepared to accomplish by yourself. 

At the Warner Center Law Offices of DONALD F. CONVISER, a Professional Corporation, we offer a choice of Unbundled Legal Services, Limited Scope Representation, or Full-Service Legal Representation, to assist and/or represent people in connection with their Divorce or Family Law cases, primarily in Los Angeles County and Ventura County.

CAN I MAKE A GIFT OF MONEY TO MY RELATIVES BEFORE FILING FOR DIVORCE?

QUESTION:  Can I give money to my adult daughters as a gift and not have it be considered part of the marital assets or community property if I gift it before filing for divorce? Also, can I give money to my nieces or nephews for college and have it excluded or not included if it's given away before filing? I understand trying to hide or dispose of assets after filing isn't legal.

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MY ANSWER:  Your proposed "gifts", whether before or after the divorce is filed, will come back to haunt you in your divorce case. You have a fiduciary duty to your spouse during the marriage until all community assets are distributed pursuant to a divorce Judgment, to manage and preserve community assets for the benefit of the marital community. If you give any funds away, not only will you not have those funds available to share with your spouse, but the Court will order you to pay your spouse his/her community share of those funds, and may impose monetary sanctions on you [possibly in the amount of your community share as well as your spouse's community share] for intentionally disposing of community assets to deprive your spouse of his/her community share. Don't make the "gifts". You'll be made very sorry if you do.

WHO WOULD GET CUSTODY OF MY MINOR CHILDREN IF I DIE?

QUESTION:  If I have sole physical and legal custody of my minor children and I die, would the surviving parent automatically get custody of the children or would the surviving parent have to take my family to court?

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MY ANSWER:  On your death, the surviving parent would normally be automatically entitled to custody of your minor children. However, other interested parties could petition the Probate Court for guardianship of the minor children if the surviving parent is an inappropriate parent, is in prison, is in a mental institution, etc.