The Secrets Behind San Diego Men's Rights in Family Court

When a marriage deteriorates, the stress and anxiety creates problems for everyone. Both the husband and wife, along with the children of the marriage, will suffer through a process that will change everyone's life. A lot of men have contacted me to simply ask if I know the "secrets of San Diego men's rights in family court".

The secret is this:

Men have no particular rights under the Family Code or in Family Court. The Family Code is absolutely gender neutral and to say that it favored men or that it favored women would be nonsense.

More than ten years ago a couple of attorneys from out of state approached me about starting a family law firm for them in San Diego that would appeal to men. They described their business model. They advertised heavily on the radio on stations that specialized in sports news. They advertised heavily for broadcasts of baseball games and football games.

These partners had started the same business model of a law firm in other cities up and down the coast and in Arizona. They believed that they wanted to pitch "men's rights in divorce" because they felt that men were more likely to pay their bill than women! They didn't really want to advance men's rights in family court, they just wanted to get paid!

Men's Rights & Family Law San Diego

I began studying family law in 1979. Since law school, I have focused on or specialized in family law every year. That includes reading the Family Code every year and staying current on all the new appellate court cases and Supreme Court cases that touch upon this favorite subject of mine. The law is gender neutral. It does not favor women. It does not favor men. It does not favor people of one particular race, nor does it favor people of a particular religion. The law specifically says that gays and lesbians have the same rights to custody as anybody else. It appears from the social trends that they will very soon have the same rights to marriage as everybody else.

Litigated Divorces

Litigated divorces can deal with relatively simple marital estates or extremely complex marital estates that involve public figures who do not want the details of their marriage and what went wrong to go public. Regardless of the specifics, when a divorce is litigated, everyone involved will face a difficult and an emotional battle.

Settled Divorces

Hopefully, everyone who wants a marriage to end will be able to work out the terms of the divorce in a civil manner so that the time and struggle involved with a litigated divorce can be avoided. Even though the prospect of working out a divorce between the parties is always a positive possibility, men still need to have their rights properly defended and enforced when it comes to certain terms of the dissolution.

Mediation/Alternative Dispute Resolution

When the parties to a divorce do not want to face the prospect of litigation but will not be able to negotiate the terms of a divorce by themselves, they have alternative dispute resolution options that include mediation. Mediation is an emerging strategy for those who want to end a marriage and need help in finding a resolution in a civil manner. While this option provides hope for many, it still involves the protection of legal rights for men who deserve to be treated fairly under the tenets of California law.

Overall, men have legal rights much like women when it comes to a California divorce. If you are facing the prospect of ending a marriage, you owe it to yourself and perhaps to several others to take every step possible to make sure that your legal rights are properly protected. If you'd like to learn more about how to go about taking this difficult and life-changing step, contact the San Diego men's rights family lawyers at the Law Offices of James D. Scott today to schedule an initial, confidential consultation.