I often tell my clients that coming to see me for the first time is one of the most difficult steps in the divorce process. Most people feel themselves forced to seek legal advice regarding their marriage either by the filing and being served with a complaint for divorce by their spouse or by their marital relationship deteriorating to the point that it becomes unsustainable.

Divorce is a painful and difficult process, especially if there are children involved and/or if we are dealing with a long term marriage. I tell my clients that things will get easier, because it has been my experience that in the majority of situations it does. The system has been designed to fulfill the following necessities:

• Parties need to be able to assert their legal rights, by filing their Complaint, Answer, Answer and Counterclaim, Appearance;
• Parties need to receive the information and records needed for them to be able to make informed decisions on how to settle their issues or to have what they will need in order to make their case to a judge, if that becomes needed at a later time;
• Parties need to regain their freedom “from the bounds of matrimony” and be able to move on with their lives.

These are the three basic and general stages of a divorce. Everybody has to go through the same steps to get to the same ultimate goal, a Judgment of Divorce. In the meantime, each person’s personal circumstances will be intimately linked and will be determinative of the level of difficulty, stress and costs that will be associated to their individual case. As I tell my clients, every case is different, some factual basis are similar, the case law is the same and the statutes are the same, but the personal circumstances of each person’s life and relationship(s) will make every case different.

Therefore, procedurally, things will continue as follows:

• The Complaint will be filed. This will initiate the proceedings, assign the case a docket number, and determine who will be called Plaintiff (the filing party), and who will be Defendant.
• The Defendant has to be served[1]. Once service is accomplished by personal service or by acknowledgment of service, the Defendant has 35 days to file their responsive pleadings.
• Responsive Pleadings are filed[2]. It can be an Answer and Counterclaim, by which the Defendant not only responds to the Complaint but he/she also asks for a divorce in accordance to his/her own causes of action. It can also be just an Answer, simply responding to the Complaint, but not asking for a Divorce himself or herself. It can also be an Appearance, which basically simply says “here I am I like to participate in the process”.
• Then the court will schedule a Case Management Conference, which will result in a Case Management Order, which will set up the instruments and format of discovery that will be used in each case and the deadlines that will apply to each instrument. Also within the same Order the court will schedule the Early Settlement Panel.
• Early Settlement Panel, this is a mandatory court date for litigants and attorneys to attend. Each county runs this program a little different. Some counties require written submissions ahead of time, others allow the attorneys and/or litigants to bring them to court, others do not require a memorandum. However, all counties will provide two experienced family law practitioners that will consider any submissions and listen to the attorneys present the financial issues in their case. Issues of Custody and Parenting Time cannot be addressed by the panel. The panelist will then consider the facts and the law applicable and call the parties and attorneys into the conference room to give them a recommendation. Although this recommendation is not binding, it is an excellent opportunity for the parties to have a better clarity of each side’s position and discuss alternatives to resolution. Some parties may resolve all of their issues that day and may be able to get divorced on that same day. If there is no settlement during the Early Settlement Panel program the next step is usually economic mediation.
• Mediation: Most counties have embraced economic mediation post Early Settlement Panel and before Trial. This is a second excellent opportunity for the parties and their attorneys to discuss their issues more in depth and try to resolve their issues with a settlement. There is also parenting time/custody mediation, this program will be provided to any parties who have not been able to resolve the issue of custody and parenting time. There is more flexibility as to when this parenting time/custody mediation takes place, it may happen before or after Early Settlement Panel, but it should always take place before a trial if time sharing with the minor children is one of the issues in contention between the parties.
• Trial, if the parties do no resolve their issues during Mediation or some other type of alternative resolution method, which can be the topic of a whole other article, they will usually be scheduled for trial. During a trial all of the unresolved issues will be decided by the judge and at the end of it a decision will be issued by the judge and the parties will be effectively divorced.
• It should be noted that at any point during the proceedings, even once the trial has begun, the parties are free and encouraged to reach an agreement resolving their outstanding issues.

As my reader can appreciate, the process can vary in length and difficulty; but it has a common effect, parties may start in shock, distraught, emotionally vulnerable when they come to see a divorce attorney for the first time; however, as the process progresses, they become occupied with the mechanics of the divorce. They have homework to do by completing forms, answering discovery, etc. The divorce process may become more tedious, but as it becomes more tedious it also becomes less emotional. The final effect of the process is that by the time people get divorced, they are more often than not ready and looking forward to moving on with their lives. Therefore, as my final words in this article, I like to leave you with the knowledge that things may be difficult and very sad now, but it will get better and eventually you will move on with things becoming a lot better for you and your children.