What Should I Bring to My Divorce With Kids Consultation?

As the best divorce lawyers in Mesa AZ we often get asked, “what should I bring to my divorce with kids consultation?” You’re receiving this video because you scheduled a consult with us to discuss a possible divorce situation. In order to make your consultation with us as productive as possible, I wanted to send you this short video to talk about some of the information that you can bring with you when you come to your consultation to make it as productive as possible. Our goal anytime we meet with someone for the first time is to give them as much information about their case as possible to help them make good and informed decisions about their case.

In a divorce case involving children there’s some really important information that you need to come prepared to discuss. With regards to the kids themselves, we are going to want to talk about a potential schedule for parenting time, we’re gonna want to talk about legal decision making which is the authority of the parents to make decisions for the kids, we’re going to want to talk about child support. To help us discuss those issues, come prepared to talk about issues that exist with the other parents that might hinder their ability to have parenting time with the children. This can include such things as domestic violence issues, abuse issues, substance-abuse issues or significant mental health.

With regard to support, it’s always helpful for us to be able to talk about the incomes of both parties, who provides health insurance, whether there’s going to be daycare, and if we’re going to be talking about abbreviated parenting time for one parent (in other words, not equal parenting time.) We’re also going to be talking about in your divorce case, how to divide property and debts. In Arizona, the courts are going to look at all the property and all the debts that you have acquired during the marriage, so it’s also helpful to come prepared with kind of an inventory of any property you have which can include houses, cars, retirement accounts, bank accounts, or any other major types of property.

With regard to debts, if you have an idea of what your credit cards are and your credit card debt or student loans as well as other types of debts, medical bills, things like that. The more we understand about your property and debt, the better advice we can give you in terms of how a court might divide that property going forward. Finally, in divorce cases we sometimes talk about alimony, or as they call it in Arizona, spousal maintenance. For that we need to discuss the budget that you have or that your spouse has in helping determine whether or not he is going to be eligible for spousal maintenance. So talking about reasonable living expenses, income, how much work the spouse has done and how much income each spouse has is very helpful to discuss the topic of spousal maintenance.

We want to thank you once again for giving us the opportunity to meet with you and discuss your important legal matter. We want you to know how seriously we take it, and how important it is to us for you to have the best understanding possible of your legal rights. We look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you.

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