Filing The Complaint
A divorce starts when one spouse files a Complaint for Divorce. It is filed in the county where you or your spouse lives.
The Complaint states the grounds, which is the legal reason the marriage is ending. Most New Jersey divorces are filed as irreconcilable differences, which means nobody is being blamed. It also states what is being asked for, such as alimony, child support, custody and a division of the property.
The spouse who files is the plaintiff. The other one is the defendant. Those are just labels for who went first. They carry no advantage.
Being Served And Answering
The Complaint is served on the other spouse along with a Summons, which tells them how long they have to respond and what happens if they do not.
The other side normally files an Answer, and often a Counterclaim of their own. Ignoring the papers does not stop the divorce. It just means it goes ahead without your side of it, which is the worst position to be in.
The Initial Case Management Conference
Once both sides are in, the court holds an Initial Case Management Conference. This is the judge taking hold of the case and setting the schedule.
At that conference the court works out:
- Which issues are actually in dispute
- The timetable for discovery, which is the exchange of information
- Whether custody and parenting time are contested
- What experts will be needed, such as an appraiser or a forensic accountant
- The date for the Early Settlement Panel
The order that comes out of it sets the deadlines for the rest of the case.
Discovery
Discovery is where both sides put their financial lives on the table. Tax returns, pay stubs, bank and retirement statements, deeds, business records, debts.
The central document is the Case Information Statement, a sworn listing of your income, your expenses, your assets and your debts. Judges read it closely, and an inaccurate one causes trouble for the rest of the case.
Discovery is usually the longest and most expensive stage. It is also where cases are won, because everything that follows is argued off what discovery turns up.
The Early Settlement Panel
Before any trial, the court sends the financial issues to an Early Settlement Panel.
The panel is made up of experienced family lawyers who volunteer for it. Each side submits a summary, the panel hears both, and it gives a recommendation on how the money issues should come out.
In New Jersey the Early Settlement Panel is a required step in every contested divorce. Neither side can decline it, so you will be going.
Do not expect a great deal from it. The panel sits early, before discovery is finished, and all it has is a short summary from each side. It knows very little about your case.
A case that can be settled on that little was never much of a fight to begin with. If yours were one of those, the two of you would have worked it out yourselves and never hired lawyers at all. So the recommendation is worth hearing, but it is not binding, and it is rarely where a real case ends.
Mediation
If the panel does not resolve it, the case goes to mediation. This is also a required step in New Jersey, not something either side chooses. Custody disputes usually go to mediation earlier than the money issues do.
A mediator does not decide anything and does not represent either of you. They run the conversation and work with both of you to find terms you can both accept. Nothing binds you until an agreement is signed.
Trial
If the case still does not settle, it is tried. Each side puts in its evidence and its witnesses, the other side tests them, and the judge decides. There is no jury in a family case.
A case has to be built for trial from the first day, not from the day a settlement falls apart. Every record gathered, every expert chosen and every question asked in discovery is done with the courtroom in mind.
That is also what makes a fair settlement possible. A side that believes you will not try the case has no reason to move. When they can see you are ready, they move.
Most people assume a trial is the expensive road and that anything is better than going down it. That is backwards. The expensive road is months of mediation and lawyers going round and round on issues that were never going to settle. Every one of those rounds is billed, and at the end of them you are in the same place, only poorer.
Our approach is simple. We start fair, and we try to settle it on fair terms. If the other side gives you the runaround, we do not keep paying for the privilege. We cut off the negotiation and we go to trial. Once it is clear the other side is being unreasonable, trying the case costs you less than another six months of going nowhere.
The Final Judgment
However it ends, the divorce is completed by a Final Judgment of Divorce entered by the court.
If you settled, the agreement you signed, usually called a Matrimonial Settlement Agreement, is attached to the judgment and becomes enforceable as a court order. If it was tried, the judge's decision becomes the judgment, and either side has the right to appeal.
* Motions And Temporary Orders
This one is not a stage. It has no fixed place in the order above, because it can happen at any point from the week the case is filed to the week before trial.
A divorce takes months, and life does not pause while it runs. So either side can file a motion asking the court to settle something now rather than at the end. Orders made this way are called pendente lite orders, which simply means while the case is pending.
They commonly cover:
- Temporary support, so the bills get paid
- Who stays in the house while the case runs
- A temporary parenting schedule
- Who pays the mortgage, the insurance and the other bills
- Access to money that has been cut off
- Counsel fees
These are holding measures, not the final answer. They can be revisited, and the Final Judgment can land somewhere quite different.
How Long It Takes
New Jersey aims to move a divorce from filing to Final Judgment within about a year. Plenty of cases finish sooner, and some take longer.
What makes it long is not the paperwork. It is a contested custody fight, a business that has to be valued, a spouse who hides income, or a side that simply will not answer discovery.
It does not end there in every case either. Alimony, support and custody can all be modified later if life changes, and an order that is being ignored can be enforced.