I have a very specific question about a particular procedural aspect of California Family Law. I cannot find any reference to it specifically in the California codes & etc., and I do not have access to a personal attorney.
Because what I want to know is an aspect of procedure, it seems as though it must be written down somewhere and is not the kind of thing that is open to interpretation. Therefore, I would think that there must be some board or agency or educational institution who would know whether or not such-and-such a thing is true, or at least that it is discretionary if that is the case.
I have spent hours and hours and hours online trying to find an answer. I have written to the California Bar Association (they didn’t answer) and many other such organizations and institutions hoping somebody would know.
So, Dopers, who knows the Final Authority from whom such wisdom flows? (And from whom you can actually get a fracking answer!)
If anybody believes they may actually know the answer themselves, go ahead and PM me. It’s a very simple question. (but it is specific to Family Law.)
Your county gov’t. should have a law library, open to the public. The staffs of these are often helpful.
I doubt you’re going to get a definitive answer here, attys. spend a lot of time and money learning this stuff, why should they give it away free on a msg. board? Dig harder, or pay an atty. to answer your question.
Nah, we’ve gotten a lot of detailed legal research here before – but for debates, not so much when someone needs advice for a real problem. When that comes up, they pretty much all do the best they can while stressing “I am not your lawyer. Take this with a grain of salt, especially if this is not my area of expertise.”
If it’s procedural, have you looked in the California Rules of Civil Procedure (or whatever Calif. calls them…)? You might also need to check the local rules for the Court you are in.
If it’s a fairly simply question of procedure, you might try asking the Court Clerk.
I don’t know about California. What works in Colorado is to ask a law librarian (there are law libraries that are open to the public–find one of these close to you) to help you find where this procedure is written down. Law librarians are very good at that kind of thing, and it’s not legal advice–it’s advice on research.
I read your question as asking about what practice guides exist that explain California procedural law specific to the family law context. I don’t practice in that area, so can only tell you that generally the definitive practice guide relating to procedural law in California is the Rutter Guide. Any law library will have Rutter Guides (I myself am partial to Civil Procedure Before Trial, Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial, and Civil Trials and Evidence). In addition to those versions, there is also an insurance law version, a landlord-tenant version, and a family law version.
So I would begin by reviewing the Rutter Guide on Family Law to see if your question is addressed in there. I would also check Jefferson’s Benchbook (although I think that’s unlikely to have anything family law-specific) and maybe Witkin on California Procedure.
If those are unhelpful, I would then look at Cal Jur, which I think is short for California Jurisprudence, but there may be other words to the title. But if you ask a law librarian for Cal Jur, he/she will know what you mean.
Finally, please understand that sometimes there simply isn’t a procedure written down. We attorneys then try to figure out what the best approach is – i.e., we analogize what we want to do to some other procedure, and then do our best, making sure the judge knows that there isn’t anything that prohibits us from doing it the way we’re doing it. I realize that’s vague, but it’s likely the best way I can explain it.
Campion: Not vague at all; in fact, I understood perfectly what you were saying. In fact, I believe what you were saying in your last paragraph is the basis for the pivotal plot-point in many a courtroom drama.
And thank you for understanding what I was trying to ask but perhaps not very well: I did indeed have a perception of things pretty much all existing on some tablet somewhere, carved into stone. But, in light of what you’re saying, I imagine that many things wouldn’t yet be written down if they had never come up. Perhaps that’s my problem. Heh. Which means, no precedent. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
