About Hofmann Law Firm, LLC

I have been practicing law since 2004. I have spent most of this time in private practice representing family members in divorces, and all parts of family law matters.

You can go to our website and complete the contact form, which will send me a direct email message. I check my email throughout the day.

New Jersey does not have any formal separation. Separation exists when parties choose to continue their marriage but would like to lead separate lives. A party can still enter into a separation agreement, which is a binding contract between the married parties laying out assets and custody, for example. This Agreement will be used in negotiations should the parties choose to become divorced later.

You must first decide if you want to hire counsel. Its always desirable to hire counsel if you can afford to do so. Experienced family law attorneys have dealt with the issues you are now facing everyday of their professional lives, whereas you are only dealing with them now for the first time. Once you decide you need a lawyer, you should contact an experienced family attorney in your area. Many provide free initial consultations for divorces, which we do as well. Once you find a lawyer you like, you pay a retainer payment and sign a Retainer Agreement and you are on your way. The attorney can write an introductory letter to your spouse telling them that you have been retained to proceed with a divorce and directly asking that he or she hire their own counsel. Or you can start by filing the divorce complaint, and then serving your spouse a few weeks later once you are assigned a docket number by the family courts.

Mediation is an increasingly popular method to getting divorced. You and your spouse meet with a mediator, who is a third party trained mediator who does not represent either party. Mediation allows the parties to work out the differences in their divorce, through compromise, without having to resort to litigation, which can be more expensive and time consuming. If the parties are not able to successfully agree on the various issues in their divorce, they can go back to litigating their divorce in the courts.

Arbitration is a type of private trial, where the parties or their lawyers produce evidence and make arguments before a hired third-party arbitrator, who acts as a judge. Arbitration has become popular because of the expense and slow-moving court system. The parties must agree at the outset to use an arbitrator to decide their dispute. Unlike mediation, where the mediator’s goal is to get the parties to compromise and agree, the arbitrator’s job is like a judge. The arbitrator hears argument and testimony, reads briefs, and then will make a binding decision that the parties must then follow.