Court Representation

Litigation Advocacy

Faith Jansen has over 25 years of court advocacy experience in all aspects of family law, including complex property and debts, child support and spousal support (alimony), child custody (in divorce and guardianships), and restraining orders. To hire her as your representative in court requires entering into an attorney-client retainer contract which assumes that there will be court appearances leading up to a trial, unless the case settles before trial. Litigation involves each party’s attorney arguing and proving his or her client’s case in front of a judge to get a court decision or order. Sometimes, where time is of the essence, starting a case in the litigation mode is the quickest way to get temporary orders for the client’s protection. Many cases start out in litigation to obtain temporary (pre-judgment) orders for child custody, visitation, child support, spousal support, occupancy of residences, use of cars, etc., after which the attorneys are able to negotiate a settlement agreement out-of-court. In other cases, settlement efforts are unsuccessful and the case goes to trial. Divorce and family law cases are tried by a judge only, without a jury, but this difference does not make them less complex, since they often have many more issues than other types of civil cases.

Disclosure Requirements and Discovery

All California divorce and legal separation cases require the parties to exchange Declarations of Disclosure which allege values of assets and debts and are accompanied by a production of specified documents. Where both parties voluntarily comply with these disclosure requirements and are transparent about assets and debts, litigation counsel will be able to confer with their clients and make settlement proposals without spending an excessive amount of time gathering documents and information from third party sources. In other cases, it is advisable to have the attorney subpoena employment compensation records directly from a spouse’s employer, or subpoena a spouse’s bank records directly from the bank, to be assured of obtaining complete and reliable information. In highly litigated cases, the attorney may have to make formal document demands, serve interrogatories, and take depositions.

Pre-Trial Settlement Strategies

Faith Jansen endeavors to settle each litigation case as soon as possible. She invests time in the beginning of the case, reviewing the parties’ Declarations of Disclosure and, if these are reliable enough, she suggests possible settlement proposals to the client and then makes settlement proposals to the opposing counsel which have been approved in advance by the client. One frequently effective pre-trial settlement technique is the four-way meeting, where both attorneys and their clients come together, face-to-face, for out-of-court confidential settlement discussions. If a four-way meeting is unsuccessful or unfeasible, another settlement negotiation technique is to hire a private mediator or a private judge to facilitate a confidential out-of-court meeting of the attorneys and parties. The Court also sets a short court appearance referred to as a Settlement Conference. This court date is set after both parties have engaged in formal discovery and incurred the attorneys fees involved in that process. At the court Settlement Conference, the judge may be able to spend an hour, more or less, attempting to facilitate a settlement, but often he or she only has time to determine whether or not the case is ready for trial. The litigation attorney should never wait for the court Settlement Conference date to start making efforts to settle the case.

Trials

Family law trials may be as brief as half a day or as long as a month, depending on the number and complexity of issues. As trial draws near, the attorney prepares for direct examination of witnesses supporting the client’s case, subpoenas witnesses to appear in court, prepares cross-examination of the opposing party’s witnesses, prepares for laying a foundation for the admission of documentary exhibits and expert witness testimony, prepares the arguments for asserting proper objections to the opposing party’s evidence, and prepares oral opening and closing statements. In addition, the attorney conducts legal research and writes trial briefs. The trial process involves many hours of attorney time with no guarantee that the opposing party will be ordered to contribute to the fees. Because of the high cost of trials and risk associated with the inability to guarantee the outcome, litigation attorneys have two parallel and simultaneous duties toward their clients, the first duty being to seek to negotiate a satisfactory settlement as early as possible in each case, and the second duty being to continuously engage in the process of preparing for a strong trial presentation.