Fortune Law Center: Oklahoma Lawyers

Fortune Law Center strives for timely resolution of difficult family situations with a minimal level of confrontation, particularly when children are involved.

Fortune Law Center has the experience to help you navigate your way through these difficult times. The first and foremost responsibility are to children that might be involved in the divorce. The “D” word has so many negative connotations that the State now officially grants only “Dissolution of Marriages” and not Divorces. This change is welcomed by many with other subtleties including listing the parties as Petitioner and Respondent as opposed to Petitioner and Defendant.

The biggest challenge we have in representing clients in these actions is both parties being able to work through the "grief" and other emotions related to ending the marriage. When both parties focus on taking care of business and setting emotions aside the process can be completed in much less time and will much less in costs and attorney fees.

Some divorce attorneys are hired because they have a reputation for being aggressive, when the boomerang effect means the parties will both spend more money than they should have to on attorney fees and costs. We can protect your interests without expending all of your money finding out things that you already knew.

Fortune Law Center also handles other types of Family Law proceedings including Divorce; Property Division; Spousal Support and Alimony; Child Custody; Child Support; Father's Rights; Visitation; Paternity; Adoptions; Guardianships; Protective Orders; and Contempt of Court Proceedings.

Oklahoma has two types of divorce: absolute divorce and limited divorce. An absolute divorce, in legal ease, is a judicial termination of a marriage based on marital misconduct or other statutory cause arising after the marriage ceremony. After getting an absolute divorce in Oklahoma, which requires six (6) months of residency, the status of both the husband and wife become legally single again.

If you have a question regarding a Oklahoma divorce, or other family law-related litigation, please contact Fortune Law Center, we are Oklahoma divorce lawyers that puts your children's interest first.

Oklahoma Divorce Law
What are the grounds for divorce in Oklahoma?

A divorce may be granted in Oklahoma divorce law using either "Fault" or "No-Fault" grounds.

Fault grounds include:
(1) Impotence;
(2) adultery;
(3) abandonment for one year;
(4) imprisonment;
(5) confinement for incurable insanity for five years;
(6) cruel and inhuman treatment;
(7) fraud;
(8) habitual intemperance;
(9) if the wife was pregnant by another at the time of the marriage;
(10) gross neglect;
(11) foreign divorce that is not valid in Oklahoma divorce law.

The No-Fault ground is incompatibility.

Of these, the "No-Fault" ground is the most straightforward and easiest to prove.

Annulment
In Oklahoma divorce law, the court declares the marriage contract broken; in an annulment, the court says that there never was a marriage. Annulment is much more difficult to prove -- and is much rarer -- than divorce. If you want to go this route, you will definitely need to speak to a divorce attorney. Of course, if you want an annulment for religious reasons, you'll need to consult with your priest, minister, or rabbi as well.

Documentation
You'll need to provide your divorce lawyer with the following documentation in order to proceed with your dissolution. Start gathering everything together as soon as possible so that you can find out what might be missing and submit any requests for duplicates.

Personal Data

• Full addresses and phone numbers of both parties.
• Full names, birth dates, and addresses of all children of the marriage, their school and grade.
• Information about any prior marriage of either spouse, including a certified copy of the divorce decree.
• A copy of any domestic contracts (e.g. a prenuptial agreement).
• Information about any previous legal proceedings between the spouses or involving any of the children.
• Dates and particulars about any previous separations, attempts at reconciliation, or marriage counseling.

Financial Data

• Your previous year's income tax return, and any related data from the IRS.
• Information about your current income, e.g. a current pay slip.
• A list of substantial assets and liabilities of both spouses.  

FAQ'

Note that answers given in this section cannot take the place of a lawyer. For legal advice about your specific situation, you must consult a qualified lawyer.

"What is the worst part of divorce?"

The worst part of divorce is the way that it affects so much of your daily life, including your emotions, your finances, and possibly your physical health. In fact, you can compare divorce to a nuclear chain reaction in which every problem aggravates related issues and one can end up marred in confusion and pain.

Perhaps the most painful and inescapable part of divorce is that you feel badly about yourself. Not only are you losing history and the familiar choreography of your life, but you are also losing a sense of who you really are. Your self-worth gets shaken to its core. Because of the natural inclination to define the end of a marriage as a personal failure, and to experience a crisis in self-esteem, it is important to understand that there are always legitimate reasons why relationships end.

"A spouse has just served me with divorce papers and I am going to see an attorney. I am confused, upset and very nervous about what is going to happen. What should I expect in the initial interview? What can I expect will happen to me in the divorce?"

The role of the lawyer in educating you is a multi-faceted process. The client needs to provide information to the lawyer, personal and financial, that enables the lawyer to understand your situation. Lawyers need to educate themselves about you and your case in order to give you appropriate feedback. Ask the lawyer about the divorce process and what you may expect as you go through the process. Provide the lawyer a history of your marital relationship, what you perceive caused the breakdown of the marital relationship and what your spouse perceives may have broken down the marital relationship, if you know. The lawyer understands that this is an extremely stressful time for you and may make suggestions for you to seek therapy to help you through the process.

Expect the lawyer to listen to you, try to focus you on what is important, and to review the information that you provide to them. Expect the lawyer to absorb and analyze all relevant information in your case and to provide both practical and legal suggestions to you, enabling you to make informed decisions concerning your matter. Remember, you ultimately are the decision-maker and must be properly educated to make fair decisions for yourself and your family. Conversely, it is your job to help educate the lawyer so that the lawyer can give you appropriate feedback. Be sure that you disclose personal and financial information openly and voluntarily. Your counsel cannot help you unless he understands your situation. Do not hold back informing your lawyer of all of the facts surrounding your situation. Your counsel cannot properly advise you without knowing all the facts. Most importantly, make sure that you have a comfort level that you will be able to work with the lawyer before entering into a contract to have counsel represent you

"Isn't divorce more than just a legal experience?"

The divorce experience does not stop with the final divorce decree. The divorce decree merely indicates that the legal aspects of the divorce are over. But equally as important as the legal divorce is the emotional divorce, a process that invariably continues beyond the legal experience.

When a family separation takes place, both parties will grieve in a way similar to mourning the death of someone close. Just as there are stages in the legal divorce, often beginning with a filing of or responding to initial legal papers, the emotional divorce also consists of identifiable stages, with feelings of shock and denial surfacing immediately after realization that the relationship has ended. When the legal process is over, the emotional focus of the parties changes to acceptance and moving on.

"My husband and I have decided to divorce after 20 years of marriage, and I'm wondering about our joint finances. When should we separate our joint bank and credit-card accounts? Should I apply for my own credit card? And if one of us were to run up large balances on the joint credit cards, would both of us be responsible for paying them?"

The way the two of you interact during the earliest stages of your divorce will set the tone for the entire process. Handled improperly, your divorce can be unnecessarily contentious, prolonged and costly, and settlements can be unfair or unworkable. Aside from your major economic goal -- to financially survive your divorce -- you and your husband will most likely need to continue to interact once your divorce has been finalized. Unnecessary emotional scarring during the divorce process can make this much more difficult.

 Working with a financial planner in the earliest stages of divorce can help you focus on your long-term situation, and empower you to make better and more informed decisions during the process. Although you undoubtedly have legitimate emotional issues, your future finances should not be controlled by ignorance, anger, or emotional pain. Although it's not always easy to do, the more business-like you are during the divorce process, the better off you are likely to eventually be -- emotionally as well as financially.

You've raised some important issues. The bottom line is that you and your husband are still financially connected, and with this connection comes certain risks. For example, credit-card companies will hold both of you personally responsible for joint credit-card debt. If one of you decides to go on a spending spree or fails to make timely payments on any debts, the financial consequences to the other party can be disastrous. The best way to deal with this problem (assuming that the two of you are still able to work together) is not to unilaterally close or freeze all of your joint accounts -- this will only raise the stakes -- but to try to work with each other to minimize the risks.

Here are some suggestions. First, make sure that each of you has a complete set of financial documents. It would probably be best to close any joint credit-card accounts. However, if you have not already established credit in your name, you should do so before the existing accounts are closed. In the interim, a formal written agreement between you and your husband on the short-term use of these accounts or other potential sources of marital debt (such as equity lines of credit) would be helpful. You should also open individual bank accounts and separate whatever cash you can reasonably and quickly agree upon. Investment assets that can not easily be separated should be frozen by calling and writing to the respective financial institutions. If there's a need to maintain a joint checking account, you should probably formalize in writing the purposes of the account and require both signatures on any future checks. Any existing ATM cards should be destroyed. To further reduce individual exposure, the titles on any large accounts, including the marital residence, should be changed to "tenants in common." Finally, your safe-deposit box should be jointly inventoried and frozen if necessary.

Although joint handling of the above matters can increase the likelihood that your assets will remain intact, it isn't without risk. It you have doubts that the two of you will be able to work together honestly and amicably, you should seriously consider immediate action to separate your finances. This will probably increase hostility, but the long-term benefits may outweigh the costs