New Jersey Lawyer Blog
Meet with Your Attorney ASAP if Divorce is Immanent! Time Will Work Against You
You should quickly decide to work with a divorce attorney for your Bergen County divorce . You will need to get prepared to get the most out of your first appointment. Your attorney will probably want some documents that are specific to your particular case. Every situation will be somewhat different.
There are other documents, however, that a family law attorney will generally need to see in every divorce or child custody case. In general, its a good idea to bring the following to your first appointment with an attorney:
- Financial documents for all your assets and debts, business financial statements, and ledgers
- Tax returns from the prior 3 years
- Pre or post nuptial agreements, if you have prepared them
- Documentation of your past employment earnings
Related Article Why Should I Hire a Divorce Attorney
In addition to these documents, its a good idea to have an outline of your priorities in regards to the divorce. These might include assets and financial goals, as well as other things like child custody and parenting concerns.
The big three things that most individuals are trying to deal with in the divorce are”
- Who gets what in terms of the house, the cars, the furnishings and other assets
- Who has primary custody of the children and what are the visitation rights
- Will there be any child support or spousal support payments.
But sometimes there are immediate issues that are more important.
- What will happen during the separation on these three issues?
- What happens if your spouse if failing to do what they are supposed to do or required to do by court order?
- What if your spouse is taking actions to hide assets or keep your from securing property that is yours or jointly owned?
- What can you do if your spouse won’t cooperate in the divorce process?
- Who is going to pay for your legal costs?
These are all major concerns that strike quickly in the first days after you have decided to divorce, and sometimes are even more critical if your spouse is the one who has filed or intends to file for divorce. His or her attorney may be advising them to aggressively attempt to assert rights that are not necessarily correctly your spouses.
The goal in any divorce is to keep things as civil as possible. This always reduces your costs, the stress on both parties, and the stress on kids and others that are close to you. Mediation is a great way to proceed, but unless you call an attorney right away, sometimes the emotional aspects get far ahead of the cooler heads that are needed to do mediation.