Divorce comes with its own vocabulary. Some terms are borrowed from general legal use, and some are specific to family law. Getting comfortable with the words that come up most often makes the whole process easier to follow, because you can read a court form or listen to an attorney without stopping every few sentences to figure out what a word means. This is a rundown of the terms that show up in almost every California divorce case.
Petitioner & Respondent
The petitioner is the spouse who files the divorce case first. The respondent is the other spouse, the one who receives the petition and has to respond. These are just role labels, not indicators of fault or right. Either spouse can be the petitioner, and being the petitioner does not carry any legal advantage in California, which is a no-fault divorce state.
Dissolution of Marriage
Dissolution of marriage is the technical term for divorce in California. When you see the form Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, that is the divorce petition. The terms divorce and dissolution mean the same thing in California family law.
Legal Separation
Legal separation is a related but different process. In a legal separation, the court divides property, sets support, and addresses custody, but the marriage itself remains in place. The parties are still legally married after a legal separation, though their financial lives have been separated. Some couples choose legal separation over divorce for religious reasons, insurance reasons, or because they are not ready to end the marriage entirely.
Community Property
Community property is any property acquired by either spouse during the marriage, with a few exceptions. California is a community property state, which means the general rule is that community property gets divided evenly at divorce. Wages earned during the marriage, houses bought during the marriage, and retirement contributions made during the marriage all qualify as community property.
Separate Property
Separate property is property that belongs to one spouse alone. It includes property owned before the marriage, gifts received by one spouse during the marriage, and inheritances received by one spouse during the marriage. Separate property is not divided at divorce and stays with the spouse who owns it.
The line between community and separate property can get blurry when separate property gets mixed with community property or when community efforts increase the value of separate property. These situations often require careful analysis to sort out.
Legal Custody
Legal custody is the authority to make major decisions about a child. Decisions about school, healthcare, religion, and other significant matters fall under legal custody. Legal custody can be joint, meaning both parents share decision-making authority, or sole, meaning one parent has the final say on those decisions.
Physical Custody
Physical custody is about where the child lives. Physical custody can also be joint or sole. Joint physical custody means both parents have significant time with the child, though not always a fifty-fifty split. Sole physical custody means the child lives mainly with one parent, with the other parent having visitation rights.
Parenting Time
Parenting time, also called visitation, is the actual schedule of when the child is with each parent. Parenting time can be broken down into weekdays, weekends, holidays, and school breaks. The parenting time schedule is separate from the custody labels, though the two work together to define the overall arrangement.
Child Support
Child support is money paid by one parent to the other for the care of a child. California uses a statewide formula to calculate the guideline amount, based on both parents’ incomes and the time each parent has the child. Judges almost always order the guideline amount unless one side gives a strong reason to go higher or lower.
Spousal Support
Spousal support, sometimes called alimony, is money paid by one spouse to the other after separation or divorce. Temporary spousal support gets set during the divorce case itself. Long-term spousal support gets set at the end of the case and can last for years, depending on the length of the marriage and other factors the court considers.
Date of Separation
The date of separation is the date the marriage ended in a practical sense, even though the divorce itself may take months or years to finalize. This date matters because property earned after the date of separation is generally separate property, not community property. The date of separation is often the subject of dispute in cases where the couple continued to live together for some time after deciding to divorce.
Financial Disclosure
Financial disclosure is the mandatory exchange of financial information between the two spouses during a divorce case. The main documents are the Schedule of Assets and Debts, the Income and Expense Declaration, and copies of tax returns. Both spouses have to disclose fully or the case cannot move to judgment.
Judgment & Marital Settlement Agreement
The judgment is the final court order that ends the divorce case. It includes all the terms of the divorce, along with any marital settlement agreement the parties have signed. A marital settlement agreement is the written contract between the two spouses that spells out the terms of their divorce, and it gets attached to the judgment.
Default
A default happens when the responding spouse fails to file a response within thirty days of being served. The petitioner can then proceed with the case without input from the other side. A default judgment can still be set aside in some circumstances, but the process is more involved than avoiding the default in the first place.
Ex Parte
Ex parte is a phrase that comes up when one party asks the court for an emergency order without the usual advance notice to the other side. Ex parte requests are meant for genuine emergencies and require a strong showing that regular notice would harm someone or the case.
The Big Picture
Knowing the vocabulary of divorce makes the process feel less foreign. Court forms make more sense once you know what the terms on them mean. Conversations with attorneys become easier when you can follow the language they use. The steps of the case fit into a pattern that you can follow. Nobody has to memorize a legal dictionary, but getting comfortable with these core terms goes a long way toward making the case less confusing.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice. For guidance on a specific situation, speak with a licensed attorney.
