Can I File for Full Custody Without the Father Knowing?
A battle for custody is very often where spouses or ex-spouses bring out the heavy artillery. These cases can be drawn out, high conflict cases, often for good reason, but sometimes for vengeance or no reason at all. Amy Laughlin, Founder and Partner at Laughlin Legal Divorce & Family Law Group, a California high net […]
Navigating Property Division in High-Asset Divorces
A Q&A about high-asset divorce asset valuation challenges with Amy Laughlin, UHNW divorce and investment property division lawyer. What don’t most people know about dividing assets in high-net-worth divorce in California? Amy Laughlin, Founder and Partner at Laughlin Legal Divorce & Family Law Group in San Mateo doesn’t even pause to consider the answer to […]
How Long Does a Child Custody Evaluation Take?
This is the sort of question best answered by a child custody attorney with a great deal of experience. Amy Laughlin, Founder and Partner at Laughlin Legal Divorce & Family Law Group in San Mateo more than qualifies. “Before directly answering that question, let’s first look at which couples are most likely to wind up […]
An International Divorce Lawyer on What You Need to Know about International Divorce
Amy Laughlin, Founder and Partner at Laughlin Legal Divorce & Family Law Group, a practice that predominantly serves ultra high net worth clients, has seen her share of international divorces and becomes animated when the subject comes up. “At the risk of sounding alarmist, if people who read this get one thing out of it, […]
What is a child custody evaluation? And will it prioritize what is best for your child?
First things first: what is a child custody evaluation? According to the California Court’s Self-Help Guide, “A child custody evaluation is an investigation of your child’s health, safety, welfare, and best interests by a trained mental health professional (an evaluator). At the end of the investigation, the evaluator will provide a report to you and […]
Hiring a private judge for divorce in California could save you time and money and preserve your privacy.
Taking a divorce case to court can be exhausting, confusing and stressful. Delays due to courts being overloaded with cases and unpredictable schedule changes can lead couples to feel frustrated and stuck, unable to move forward with their lives despite having already made the choice to leave their marriage behind. Strict procedures, deadlines and paperwork […]
What Legal Challenges Can a Family Lawyer Help You Overcome During a Contentious Divorce?
You’re sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee from a mug you got as a souvenir on a vacation with your spouse. You remember lying on a beach holding hands, reading poems to each other every anniversary on the same bench where you got engaged, simply being happy. You look up at the empty seat […]
What Is a Wife Entitled to in a Divorce in California in 2025?
Navigating any legal situation can be challenging and stressful, but there’s something uniquely grueling about divorce: it’s not just that it hits close to home, often it’s literally the home that’s at stake. The emotional weight of divorce can be exhausting enough. But when you factor in the added weight of trying to understand the […]
Who Should You Talk to About Child Custody with Special Needs?
Good question. And increasingly, a commonly searched question. What you’re looking for is a special needs child custody lawyer. There has been a dramatic rise in the population of children with chronic illness whose parents are disputing custody in the family courts. There is also a rapidly expanding number of divorce and separation cases involving […]
30 Signs It’s Time to Find a Spousal Support Lawyer
This list could easily be 300 Signs It’s Time to Find a Spousal Support Lawyer. (Or alimony attorney depending upon when you were born.) But we’ve narrowed it down to the stories we hear most often from our legal rights in spousal support cases. This is what we do. Most people, lawyers included, don’t do […]