Divorce Can Be Problematic with Professional Practices

California divorces are often associated with famous performers and other prominent and well-known people. However, divorce legal issues can affect anyone and be a financial and personal problem for their lives from top to bottom. Professional people who have their own practice in their chosen profession are no exception. Since a professional practice can be lucrative, there can be a litany of property concerns. Disentangling from a business relationship as well as a personal relationship doubles the risk and makes it essential to have legal advice.

In some cases, the parties worked together in some capacity whether as partners with the same credentials or with one being the professional and the other performing a variety of duties to help the business. A professional practice can range from a law firm, a dentist’s office, a doctor’s office, a veterinarian, an accounting firm, architects, engineers and much more. To simply get a business like this off the ground takes more than a good education and various degrees. It requires hard work, loans, building a client base and other factors. If a marriage comes apart, it can jeopardize everything that was built.

From the perspective of a spouse who might not have had a role in the professional business, there are other considerations that must be addressed. The person might have been a stay at home parent who took care of the personal matters so the professional did not need to worry about it. There could have been unseen and underappreciated contributions to the building of the business that must be assessed during a divorce and are difficult to put a financial value on. Depending on the circumstances and how the business was structured, the entire divorce process can turn into an extended slog to separate.

Regardless of the position of the spouses and how the practice was created, built and maintained, a divorce is a difficult matter to deal with. Property division can often lead to rancor and when there is a professional practice at stake, this can be exponentially worse. A law firm that understands how to handle these divorce issues should be called for a consultation before doing anything else. This is a good start toward a reasonable resolution and to be prepared for a court case if it is necessary.