0217: Divorce, Custody & Support Tips during COVID-19

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In this episode, I want to do a more timely addition of the Divorce and Your Money episode. As you know, clearly if you're listening to this that there is a big virus going around and businesses are closed. Courts are closed to most extent. And a lot has changed in the span of just a few weeks. And depending upon where you are, the severity has changed quite a bit. But, many life-altering changes, and I wanted to discuss its impact on the divorce process and some things that you may want to consider during the coronavirus epidemic, or pandemic I should say. There are some helpful tips in here and just a hodgepodge of ideas I wanted to go through and some frequently asked questions and thoughts as you consider everything that's going on.

There's a few big things that have happened all at the same time. First, of course, is the virus. The second is the employment situation has changed. As I record this, over 3 million people have reported that they have filed for unemployment, and that number will go up, I'm sure, over the coming weeks. Also, the stock market is down quite a bit, and a lot of people are in much tougher situations than they found themselves just a month ago when ... Well, you still have the divorce part, but at least the economy was good, market was up, and everything else. So I want to give you some things to consider and things that you can do.

The first thing is that across the country and just about every attorney I've talked to in every state I've talked to, court's closed. Now, they're not closed, closed for absolutely everything because the legal system is very important. But for anything that's not essential, the court is likely closed. So what does that mean for you? Well, it means for many things you cannot go get them resolved. So if you have a session in front of a judge that's not immediately urgent or an emergency, it will likely be delayed for several months. And unfortunately, because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of delays happening at the same time, things are going to take a lot longer once we start to reestablish some form of normalcy.

Now, if you have an emergency order for some reason, and you will have to have an attorney to help you with this, at least I recommend one, emergency orders, almost universally, are still going through in courts across the country. But it has to be a true emergency for a court to want to hear it and for you to get a resolution on that particular issue that may be occurring, so there's something to that point.

Now, if you want to resolve your situation, your divorce case, and court is not available at the moment, what are your options? Well, if you are in a position to mediate or negotiate a settlement, every attorney I know is still working. These are all small businesses for the most part. Most family law firms are small businesses. They still are working the same way they would. Now, of course everyone is remote. I've always been remote. So for better, for worse, this hasn't changed a drop of my day-to-day life. But attorneys are working remote, and so you can still work towards negotiating a settlement as if nothing mattered. Now, will you be able to file the final paperwork? Probably not. Or at least it may get delayed until you get the final sign-off, but everything is still possible to make progress in terms of a divorce case or issues you are facing.

Now, if you have to have a court date for something and that would be essential to your process, that's not going to happen anytime soo