Smoother Path to Divorce Through Joint Petitions Starting January 2026
California divorce law changes in 2026! California, the first state to legalize ‘no fault’ divorce in 1969, has taken another significant step toward making divorce in California more cooperative and less adversarial. As of January 2026, a new law, Senate Bill 1427, allows for a ‘joint petition for dissolution of marriage’. Amy Laughlin, Founder, Partner, […]
Keeping Your Business Safe in an Ultra High-Asset Divorce
A conversation with an Ultra High-Asset Divorce Attorney The following is a not unusual history for a typical Laughlin Legal client… When he was 6, he broke apart his mom’s laptop to see how it worked. When he was 9, he built his own laptop. When he was 17, he developed a business concept for […]
Unmarried Parents and Child Custody
What you may be wondering… Just as our planet, our world and our politics are constantly changing, so, too are our demographics. There was a time when unmarried parents and child custody were seldom paired in the same sentence. But since the late 1990s, the number of children born to and living with unmarried parents […]
How Are Retirement Assets Divided for High Net Worth Divorces (in California)?
A conversation with a high asset divorce attorney. The short answer is: it’s complicated. The long answer is: it’s more complicated in most states than it is in California because California inherited the community property system of asset division from Mexico when the state was annexed in 1848 following the Mexican–American War. The simplicity of […]
Grey Divorce: How To Handle Divorce In Your 50s, 60s and Beyond
Each generation has its own unique interpretation of marriage, family and divorce. The Baby Boomer generation, born 1946 to 1964, postponed getting married, postponed having kids and had fewer of them. Where their parents mostly stayed married until death they did part, Boomers embraced divorce, became divorced in greater numbers, and divorced later in life […]
Mediation Before a Child Custody Trial – A California Child Custody Mediation Attorney’s Perspective
Research indicates that children are often a stabilizing influence on a marriage. Indeed, staying together for the sake of the children is a long-standing and widely accepted practice in our culture. But once the decision to divorce is made, child custody is often the most contentious, most emotionally wrenching aspect of the divorce. How does […]
Mediation and Collaboration for Family Law Disputes
A conversation with a certified mediation lawyer for divorce. Most of us have heard of mediation. It’s a legal strategy for resolving family law disputes by bringing in a mediator to work with both spouses and help them reach agreement on difficult issues. What most of us don’t know however is that research shows that […]
How to Split Stocks in a Divorce: A California Expert’s Guide
All successful divorce lawyers, in California and every other state, are good at something. They may be good at instilling confidence in their clients. They may be good at listening or mediation or explaining complicated issues. But when you get into the high net worth divorce terrain where people invariably divorce with investments, you want […]
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 […]