Divorce lawyers Adelaide are practitioners of family law whose specialty is in handling cases pertaining to the dissolution of marriage. Technically, however, divorce lawyers Adelaide can also provide legal counsel to couples who want to adopt, to regular citizens who want to create a living will, and practically to any member of the family who may be potentially affected by conjugal conflicts of interest.
Lawyers Adelaide – Where to go from here
Divorce lawyers Adelaide can either represent each party or both. In the former case, separate divorce lawyers Adelaide may be required if the dissolution of marriage is contentious; in the latter, only one legal counsel is needed if the divorce is uncontested, where both spouses have already decided how to divide the family property, how to share custody with kids, and how to share the financial burden raising kids and putting them through college.
Where divorce is contentious – cases where the spouses cannot agree on major issues mentioned above – divorce lawyers Adelaide will handle the cases separately. The petition will have to be drawn up by the initiator of divorce, and served to the other spouse after it has been signed. Then divorce lawyers Adelaide will appear before the court to appeal for each of their client’s case. In this set-up, the judge will then have to decide how to divide the property, who gets custody, and how much will be the alimony.
In an uncontested divorce, both spouses have already decided to separate ways and have already finalized how family matters will be disposed. This means that they only hire divorce lawyers Adelaide to legally represent their joint appeal for divorce in court. Divorce lawyers Adelaide who handle uncontested separation will only then carry out the paperwork involved and may not legally intervene at all, although they can give legal advice as appropriate.
This set-up is usually the case in amicable settlements where both spouses have already agreed who gets what or which child stays with whom. Divorce lawyers Adelaide act more as mediators rather than litigators.
Given these scenarios, it appears that uncontested divorce is least costly and faster to process than a contentious one. Reputable divorce lawyers Adelaide should be able to convince spouses to arrive at a “no court” agreement, or collaborative divorce. Divorce proceedings can be traumatizing to children if they are allowed to drag on, sometimes interminably, in court.
Lawyers Adelaide – Wrap Up
Divorce lawyers may also have to deal with the custody of fertilized embryos if, prior to the divorce, the couple had decided to conceive through assisted reproductive technology and have not reached an agreement on the matter.
While divorce lawyers Adelaide deal with post-nuptial issues, they can in fact be called upon to help draft pre-nuptial agreements and other stipulations regarding separation in the future (if at all). This way, the legal groundwork of an amicable settlement has already been drawn up, and all the divorce lawyer will have to do is to enforce the pre-nuptial document. Lawyers Adelaide says this spares both spouses, and their children, from paying the emotional costs of separation that can be avoided with proper legal guidance.