Here's an article from the Los Angeles Times entitled Do-it-yourself divorce doesn't always sever ties.article
When Yanic Chan and Vanessa Van split up in 1995, they couldn't afford a lawyer.
So, like thousands of other people without money, they filled out the divorce
paperwork themselves, with help from a friend.
In November 1997, Van went
to the Riverside County Courthouse to enter a final judgment. "The clerk put the
stamp on it," Van said. "I asked, 'Everything finished?' She said 'Yes.'
"
Chan returned to his native Cambodia and married again. Then, in 2006,
he tried to bring his new wife to this country. And that's when Van and Chan got
a nasty surprise, one that court officials fear could be awaiting thousands of
other former California couples: Their divorce had not been
finalized.
Driven by rising legal fees, a shortage of legal aid lawyers
and a do-it-yourself philosophy, about 80% of people in California handle their
own divorces, according to court officials.
Many of them are not quite as
divorced as they think they are. Some of them, like Chan, are even accidental
bigamists, carrying not only hopes and dreams but also an earlier marriage to
their new one.
Tens of thousands of others have some understanding that
their divorces are not done. But stumped by complex paperwork and court
procedures, and unable to afford thousands of dollars for attorneys, they simply
let their cases languish.
Court officials across the state say they
suspect the problem is vast. In Los Angeles County, Kathleen Dixon, who heads
the Superior Court's programs for self-represented people, estimated that a
third or more of all divorce petitions filed in the county in the last several
years have not been finalized.
Neither state nor county officials have
statistics because they don't monitor cases to make sure they are finished. But
the evidence they have worries them.
One L.A. County Superior Court
judge, Mark Juhas, found that about a third of the roughly 3,600 divorce cases
filed in 2001 and 2002 and assigned to his courtroom remain open. Some of those
couples may have reconciled, but Juhas suspects that many more are stuck or may
even think they are divorced when they are not.
Bonnie Hough is
supervising attorney for the Center for Families, Children and the Courts, a
division of the state Judicial Council's Administrative Office of the Courts.
She noted a study in Placer County in the 1980s that found that 30% of people
there who filed for divorce did not complete the process.
At one legal
services center in Van Nuys, officials say they see 20 people a month who
incorrectly thought they were divorced.
"They come in screaming," said
Norma Valencia, a paralegal at the center operated by Neighborhood Legal
Services. "They say, 'You don't understand my situation. I want a divorce right
now.' "
Others show up weeping: They've remarried without a finalized
divorce, and they're afraid to tell their new spouses.
Many people,
Valencia said, think divorce is like a traffic ticket and if they fail to take
care of it properly, the court will track them down and notify them.
But
it doesn't work like that. In California, getting divorced takes at least three
steps: filing divorce papers, serving them on the spouse and then writing and
processing a judgment with the court. The process can be more complicated if
there are children or fights over assets. A divorce cannot become final until at
least six months after the date the papers are served.
Increasingly,
across California and the nation, people are handling their own civil court
matters. In San Diego County, one of the few counties where statistics are
available, 46% of people represented themselves in divorces in 1992; by 2000
that figure had climbed to 77%.
One reason: increasing fees for lawyers
combined with decreasing legal aid services for poor people, said Richard Zorza,
who coordinates a national network of organizations working on
self-representation.
Also a factor, he said, is a "Home Depot philosophy
of people feeling they can do things on their own." But the legal system wasn't
organized with a do-it-yourself approach. It's meant to be navigated by lawyers.
And people without legal training often make mistakes.
"People just don't
get it done. They don't know how to get it done," said Juhas, the Los Angeles
Superior Court judge. "That's troubling. There are legal ramifications to
continuing to be married."
Juhas said the problem was brought home to him
a few years ago, when two people appeared in his courtroom on a routine matter.
They had filed for a divorce a few years earlier, and both had since remarried.
Juhas said he looked down at their file and then back up at the couple. "I said,
'Do you realize your judgment was never entered?' "
In plain English,
that meant they weren't divorced. Luckily for the couple — and their new spouses
— Juhas finalized their divorce without invalidating their new
marriages.
But it got him thinking: What about the thousands of other
people whose files remain open?
Last spring, the judge, one of more than
40 who handle family law in L.A. County, began calling in about 100 people a
month whose divorce cases have languished and asking them if they need
help.
About 10% say they have reconciled, and about 30% ignore his
summons. But more than half, he said, want to be divorced and just need some
help.
Just after 9 a.m. on a recent morning, Juhas hoisted a stack of
divorce files onto his desk and began calling names. About a dozen people stared
back. Some were alone. Some were with spouses. Some looked fearful. Others
glowered. Juhas asked them to stand and follow Janice Shurlow, a lawyer who
works with the court helping people representing themselves.
Shurlow led
them to a conference room. "If both parties are here and you get along, please
feel free to sit together," she said. "If you don't get along, feel free to sit
on opposite sides of the room."
For the next two hours, attorneys, some
volunteer, others employees of the court's family law resource center, assisted
people with paperwork.
A man with tattoos lacing up his neck and down his
arms bent over a stack of forms in the front of the room. The man, who said he
did not want his name printed because of the personal nature of the matter, said
he had filed for divorce in 2002.
"I thought I was divorced," he said. A
moment later, he said he knew he wasn't divorced but was uncertain about what to
do after his spouse refused to sign papers he gave her.
"Out of sight,
out of mind," he said. He looked at the mass of paperwork in front of him and
sighed. "It's so easy to get married. Sign your name and say, 'I do,' " he said.
"Say I don't. I don't want to be married anymore."
Court officials say
they are studying Juhas' approach and may expand it if it proves
successful.
At the same time, court officials in L.A. and elsewhere in
the state have launched self-help programs so people can get
divorced.
But that does little to help the thousands who are stuck in
legal limbo now, Chan and Van among them.
After they thought their
divorce had become final in 1997, Chan married a second time. He divorced —
properly — in 2003, although he later discovered that marriage was not legally
valid.
But that was nothing compared with the problem he encountered when
he tried to bring his third wife to the U.S.
Earlier this year, he got a
notice from the U.S. State Department asking for proof of his divorce from Van.
He provided the paperwork the Riverside court had given him in
1997.
"They said everything is not final," Chan said. "I felt very upset.
I could not eat for three days."
He found a lawyer, Faith Nouri. She said
a judge had asked for additional information about child visitation. But Van and
Chan say they had never received any notice from the court.
In 2001,
after their case had been dormant for five years, the Riverside court dismissed
it. Again, Chan and Van said they were never notified.
But now there is
no easy way for a judge to retroactively divorce them.
Nouri said she
plans to ask a judge later this month to set aside the dismissal, but she said
"it's a long shot." If the judge won't, Nouri said, she doesn't know how Chan
can bring his new wife to this country.
"Then he is in a bigamous
marriage," she said. "There will be a lot of explaining to do."
