Case #1:  Obtained court order that allowed Mother to move with child from California to the East Coast on an Ex-Parte (emergency) motion.

The anticipated length of a time to obtain an order, on a request to move away with a child, takes approximately 6 months. The standard procedure is an in depth mediation resulting in a report and recommendation made to the court by the mediator. I was able to obtain a move away order only giving a 24 hour notice to opposing counsel for an emergency hearing. At court, the opposing counsel laughed at me and said she would stop practicing law if I was successful in this very rare and unusual strategy.

Facts of the case:  My client was the mother of a toddler. She lost her job in California and Father was unemployed and not assisting with support. She was offered a job back east, in an area where she grew up and had lots of family and friends. Her mother, who provided day care, was willing to move with my client and the child.

Using the facts of the case with evidence to support her new job offer, I was able to convince the judge to let my client move right away. His order was that she could move that minute.

Opposing counsel was so stunned at the order that she started crying…although, she did not keep her promise to stop practicing law.

Case # 2:  Obtained a child support order that was 1/3 below Californian Guideline support.

California law provides for child support within its’ Guideline calculations. Using the law and the facts of the case I was able to obtain an order for support much lower than what Guideline dictated it should be.

Case #3:  I was able to obtain a termination date for spousal support on a 12+ year marriage.

California law considers a marriage over 10 years to be a long term marriage and does not provide for a date certain to terminate a spousal support award.

Facts of the case:  My client wanted to make a lump sum payment of spousal support so that he could be done with the opposing party, move on with his life and plan for his financial future.

The case was complex with many financial issues to navigate. However, I kept my client’s main goal in sight and that was to obtain a date that the spousal support would terminate.

I explained to my client that a termination date on spousal support would be difficult to obtain under the circumstances of the case (i.e. long term marriage, opposing party had not worked in many years, opposing party was older and disabled).

During negotiations, I was able to obtain an agreement to terminate spousal support at one-half the length of the marriage (i.e. 6 years). I negotiated a lump-sum payment to opposing party.

Case #4:  I obtained an order that granted my client full custody of her children after she had been ordered that her visitation had to be agency supervised.

Facts of the case:  My client came to me after she lost custody of her children and was ordered to agency supervised visitation only several hours per week.

With my legal maneuvering, I obtained an order giving my client full custody of the children from the same Judge that made the original order taking the children from her and ordering supervised visitation.

Case #5:  In a property division case, I negotiated a settlement for my client that allowed her to keep the house (and its’ equity), her substantial pension and 401K, all the household furnishings, and she did not owe him any equalizing payment!

During negotiations, I am careful to identify what is important to the opposing party. Having done that in this case, I was able to negotiate that my client keep all the above assets and the opposing party was awarded his Harley, a collection, and his tools.