Options Available When Couples Decide That They Will Be Proceeding With The Divorce In Idaho

In this article, you will learn:

• What to expect if you proceed with divorce in Idaho
• What may happen if spouses are unable to agree
• When court proceedings may become necessary

There are many options available when spouses decide a divorce is what they want. If couples can try to sit down and figure things out, one of the options is to have one of them hire an attorney as a draftsman and maybe a mediator to help them work through the things that they don’t have resolved and to help them think of the things they didn’t think of in an attempt to put together a settlement before a case is even filed. Sometimes that process is effective, and people get through it very quickly because they’ve already reached agreements about how things are going to go. But ordinarily, when people come into my office, they either want to file a petition for a divorce, or they have received a petition for divorce, and they have 21 days to respond.

But any way you slice it, whether you try to do it by agreement or whether you try to just simply start with the petition, somebody has to draft a petition, get it filed with the court, and get it served on the other party, which starts the 21-day clock for the other party either have an attorney appear, or to file a response to the petitioner. And if people don’t like what’s proposed in the other side’s petition, they can always do a counter-petition and set out what they would like the court to do, and serve that on the other person or their attorney. Then, we get into a spot where the court will schedule a conference to try to find out about the case, the issues, and how the various issue may play out if the case goes to trial. The general timeline is nine to ten months out for a trial date, and longer if it will need multiple days for trial.

In some of the counties, you can get a trial in four or five months, but once you file the petition and the responses are done, the court will enter an order for mediation, which gives the parties a chance to control their own destinies. People will typically be ordered early in the case to complete two or three mediation sessions and see if they can’t work things out for themselves. If there are children involved, mediators need to be people who have applied to the Supreme Court to get on the child custody mediation roster that must have certain training and must renew their training every three years.

The exchange of information process begins 35 days after the last response. The clock starts to run on mandatory disclosure of the last three years of tax returns, and several other types of financial information. At some point down the road, usually six weeks or so before the trial, the court will have a pretrial conference and they’ll expect a witness list, exhibit lists, and things like that to be exchanged between the parties. However, much of the proceedings depend on the type of case and the amounts of money involved in the property division or in potential spousal support issues. So, you’ve got a middle of the case where you’re working on gathering evidence and getting ready for trial, and hopefully having some settlement discussions with the other side.

Available Options If Spouses Can’t Agree On Custody Or Other Matters In A Divorce

Suppose you can’t reach an agreement through mediation or through settlement negotiations at the end of the day. In that case, the only way to get a decision is to go to trial, present the evidence that supports your position, do what you can do to minimize the effect of the testimony and evidence that’s presented with the other side, and argue your position to the court about what should happen.

For more information on Family Law in Idaho, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (208) 701-6644today.