San Mateo, California Family Law Attorneys

The family attorneys at ADZ Law, LLP draw on their extensive experience in providing clients with results-oriented, passionate counsel and representation in the full range of California family law matters. We prioritize the client’s financial, family, and emotional needs in presenting options and possible outcomes, enabling the client to take control of their life and choose their best path forward.

Prenuptial, Antenuptial, and Cohabitation Agreements

When two people get married, the law automatically creates legal rights and duties each spouse owes to the other. Thankfully, most of those rights and duties can be modified by contract. Couples who are happily partnered and choose not to marry can contract to provide only those rights and duties they choose.

For couples who are newly engaged, already married, or happily partnered with no plans to marry, the family attorneys at ADZ Law help create the legal framework for the partnership they want. In helping couples modify the legal rights and duties established by law, our attorneys assist with prenuptial agreements before marriage, antenuptial agreements during a marriage, and living-together agreements for cohabiting unmarried couples.

Divorce and Dissolution of Relationships

When a relationship is not working and one or both parties contemplate a breakup, the family lawyers at ADZ Law offer counsel about rights, duties, and options to help them make the best decisions for themselves and their family. Our family attorneys are compassionate, tenacious advocates who fight for our clients and their children.

Our attorneys have many years of experience litigating and negotiating a wide range of cases, including simple divorces with no children, complex asset distributions, and high conflict custody cases. We are adept at addressing situations involving issues of mental or physical disabilities, special needs children, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, and sexual assault. We provide honest assessments about what the law can achieve in a given situation.

The family attorneys at ADZ Law advise and represent clients on the following types of matters as part of a divorce or dissolution proceeding:

• Termination: Dissolving relationships for couples who are married, in domestic partnerships, or unmarried.
• Children: Addressing issues involving custody, visitation, special needs, and safety.
• Financial Support: Obtaining or defending against spousal and child support.
• Division of Property: Counseling and representing clients in dividing real property, financial assets, employment benefits, and business interests.

Please refer to our Divorce and Dissolution page for additional information.

Division of Property

California is a community property state: Unless a couple contracts for an alternative arrangement (such as a prenuptial or antenuptial agreement), all income, property, and debts acquired during a marriage are community property and divided equally between the spouses in a divorce or dissolution. Assets that one spouse brings to a marriage or acquires through gift or inheritance during the marriage are generally considered separate property not subject to division, unless the parties do something either intentionally or unintentionally to change that characterization.

When a relationship legally ends, community property is divided equally. The division includes all assets, such as home equity, business interests, pension plans, retirement funds, personal property (including items such as artwork, jewelry, antiques, vehicles, airplanes), life insurance, brokerage accounts, stock options, bank accounts, without regard to which spouse contributed to the acquisition. No court has the authority to divide the property any other way.

With equal division firmly established as the bright-line legal rule, the question of distribution often comes down to how specific items are characterized. The process of characterizing property as community or separate can be complicated. If, for example, there is a dispute regarding when property was acquired or what funds it was acquired with, a method called "tracing" must be used where one has to work backward to analyze how the property was originally acquired. Our family law attorneys at ADZ Law are skilled financial strategists who have the proven capability to carefully evaluate and examine the client’s marital estate, explain how the law characterizes each item, and help the client obtain the most favorable distribution.

Children

When a couple with children ends a relationship, the children’s interests and future add significant complexity, stress, and emotion to the situation. Our parental desire to do what is in the best interests of our children is strong.

The lawyers of ADZ Law are skilled at gently and realistically preparing clients for parenting post-separation. We utilize our negotiation and mediation skills to help parents prepare clear, specific, enforceable co-parenting agreements to minimize conflict and maximize cooperation. When agreement is not possible, we exercise our litigation brawn to seek all relief available in court.

Our family attorneys help clients with all matters relating to the children of a relationship, including:

• Establishing and enforcing safe post-separation parenting plans, including child custody and visitation.
• Obtaining orders identifying the legal parents for children born outside of a marriage, children with multiple parents, children born of formal or informal sperm donation or surrogacy, children formally and informally adopted, children raised informally by loving adults, and other types of nontraditional families.
• Moving with child(ren) or stopping the other parent from taking the child(ren) away.

Please refer to our Child Custody and Support page for additional information. ADZ Law attorneys also help clients with spousal support / alimony, as part of our family law services.