I mean the basics of a Colorado divorce

are that the case gets filed

um either as a petition which is one

person filing and serving the case on

the other or as a competition where both

parties are presenting to the court that

they would like to get a divorce

and the first time that a decree can be

entered in Colorado is 91 days after the

case starts in that time there are a

bunch of things that need to happen and

many divorces take longer than 90 days

to get done but you know the timeline of

divorce is really within the first 42

days we have an initial status

conference where we check in with the

court and tell the court what we think

the issues are what experts are going to

be needed what issues are going to be

needed to be addressed during the

process of the divorce and in some cases

we schedule a permanent orders hearing

we gather information we have a series

of mandatory disclosures in Colorado

that include an exchange of certain

documents and an exchange of a sworn

affidavit and certificate of compliance

that reflect the assets and debts of the

parties and the income and the expenses

so that everybody has an idea of what

the scope of

the assets are going to be and after

that exchange either it’s a simple

divorce and we can go ahead and try and

get it settled courts will order in

every single District in Colorado that

we mediate but sometimes we get it’s

settled before mediation or if it’s

complex Divorce by the time we’ve

exchanged the financial disclosures we

know we need to get an expert to Value

the business and we maybe need to get an

expert to look at whether or not the

trust has a marital component so we’ve

discussed what experts are going to be

needed and then really the discussion of

settlement is delayed until we get those

answers from experts about what are

these values that we’re dealing with

other issues obviously if there’s a

maintenance component or alimony as some

people call it we have to talk about

what are the people the party’s ability

to support themselves and what were the

reasonable needs of the marriage during

the marriage child support again is

another thing we look at and then

parenting time sometimes parties aren’t

able to come to agreements on

how the parenting time should look how

much time should the children spend with

each party in those cases sometimes we

have to get an expert called a child and

family investigator or a parental

responsibilities evaluator to

investigate and and make recommendations

to the court about what might be in the

best interest of the children our goal

is always to get the cases settled

because parties who settle have the most

control over their case but sometimes we

end up at a permanent orders here and

contested in front of a judge and again

that will further delay the case in

Colorado because many dockets are backed

up so while 91 days is a great goal to

shoot for and certainly people who are

working well together might be able to

get their case done in 91 days people

who are going to a contested hearing are

probably looking at a much longer way to

get a divorce in Colorado