Rusty Shackleford

Is there a special type of Lawyer that handles divorce cases when the wife
leaves and goes back to her country of origin (Ukraine). I live and
California and I would like to get divorced but not sure if it is even
possible if the wife is gone back and I have no contact with her.


--
Rusty Shackleford

Folinskyinla

Hi:

It is possible to have you marriage dissolved in California.

Any lawyer in California who does family law should be able to do this. Your problem is in getting "service of process" on her. It will really help if you have an address where she can get registered mail. You should also be careful of the International Convention of Service of Process. Some countries have "opted out" of direct service of process and you have to go through a governmental designated agent. Examples of such countries are China and Germany. You might have to revert to service by publication of the summons in a newspaper. But you have to pull eyeteeth to have the Court consent to that.

I once represented a partnership in regards to immigrant investor visas. When the business failed, I was holding a sizable chunk of cash in my trust acount. I had to file an "interpleader" lawsuit to get rid of that money. My clients were in China and the designated agent is the Ministry of Justice. I did have their addresses. But the Convention required me to go to the Ministry of Justice while the ethical rules of client confidentiality prohibited me from using that form of service. We recieved an order allowing publication to get "official service" while I had to use registered mail to achieve "actual notice." The funny thing is that none of the investors, including the ones in the US filed any claim on the money! In a few years time, the money now sitting with the Los Angeles County Clerk will "escheat" to the State of California.

Andrew DeFaria

Folinskyinla wrote:

    > I once represented a partnership in regards to immigrant investor
    > visas. When the business failed, I was holding a sizable chunk of cash
    > in my trust acount. I had to file an "interpleader" lawsuit to get rid
    > of th- at money. My clients were in China and the designated agent is
    > the Min- istry of Justice. I did have their addresses. But the
    > Convention requ- ired me to go to the Ministry of Justice while the
    > ethical rules of client confidentiality prohibited me from using that
    > form of service. We recieved an order allowing publication to get
    > "official service" while I had to use registered mail to achieve
    > "actual notice." The funny thing is that none of the investors,
    > including the ones in the US filed any claim on the money! In a few
    > years time, the money now sitting with the Los Angeles County Clerk
    > will "escheat" to the State of California.

Next time just send me the money! ;-)

--
Oops. My brain just hit a bad sector.

inquisitive40

Yup, you can get a default dissolution, all you need is a response from her to say she received the papers (at least that is all I needed with my ex in Ireland). My lawyer may have been ultra careful to have the bases covered BUT as has often been said "no one can force you to stay married" in the US anyways

Might cost a bit though through a lawyer, also if the response for serving the papers is an actual requirement you may also have to pay someone in the Ukraine to serve her.

Sometimes just a notice in the local papers can also suffice in a case where you have no actual address.

Patrick

Andrew DeFaria

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

    > Is there a special type of Lawyer that handles divorce cases when the
    > wife leaves and goes back to her country of origin (Ukraine). I live
    > and California and I would like to get divorced but not sure if it is
    > even possible if the wife is gone back and I have no contact with her.

If you don't mind me asking how/why did your wife leave the country
without getting divorced? I mean wouldn't she have the same problem as
you? Still married to a person in another country? Why would she not
agree and want to get divorced just as much as you?

--
As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools

Folinskyinla

Hi:

LOL. As much as I would like to send you the money, that would also get me into trouble. Lawyers who diddle with trust accounts are in BIG trouble. Therefore my LOL is tempered somewhat.

Folinskyinla

Hi:

You are correct on the signed "Notice & Acknowledgment" will also do the trick in California. In fact, with a cooperative respondent/defendant, that is the easiest way to get "service of process." BTW, the refusal of the respondent/defendant makes them liable for all expenses of process incurred after that. However, with an ex- in Ukraine, good luck on enforcement.

However, I would like to point out that there is nothing "special" about this. This is involved in general practice for any civil litigation. It is often not a big problem.

Chessiet

I think I've gotten several emails from you regarding this. Do you operate out of Nigeria?

I kid, I kid

inquisitive40

This is exactly what my lawyer did, he informed my ex wife that she would be liable for any expense incurred in serving her if she did not respond. Luckily for me she wanted it sorted also and so signed that she had received the papers. If she had filed a response that would have cost another $250 (due from her).
I would have had the same problem as this US citizen with enforcing the payment though, very hard to get someone in another country to follow US laws.

I was lucky
Patrick

Folinskyinla

Hi:

I know you kid -- but since its trust money and the rules are that I can't keep it in my trust account longer than necessary, I had to get rid of it.

My ethics attorney recommended the interpleader action. Interpleader is a device where an asset holder can sue to say "I hold this money, I don't know who to give it to, let them duke it out and allow me to go away." It is commonly used by insurance companies when there are competing claimants to the same policy benefits. In fact, there is a federal interpleader statute for situations when the competing claimants are in different states -- so a company won't get nicked by both a New Jersey and California judgements to pay the same policy twice.

Andrew DeFaria

Chessiet wrote:

    > I think I've gotten several emails from you regarding this. Do you
    > operate out of Nigeria? :D
    > I kid, I kid :)

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Internet...

I got an email from a person in another African country - similar deal.
Now I aggressive filter my email so this guy had to register to email
me. Well while I was dealing with that I get an IM message from him.
Again, my IM client blocks spammers by requiring that they enter a pass
phrase. So I sometimes toy with such people. (It says "Please type in
the following to get through" and I toy by asking them "Can you read?".
They inevitably respond to me and ignore/don't read that they have to
enter the pass phrase).

So in IM this scammer and I chatted for a while. He attempted to get me
to send him money so he could leave his country and get his money in
Holland. I asked him for the account # in Holland. He said the 16
million was not in a bank but in a trunk. I asked for a phone number so
my (fictious) Holland buddy could go there and pick up the money. He
gave me some phone number. Ended up that I told him my Holland buddy
would go down, get the 16 million out, send him ~$10K, keep a million
for himself and give me the other 15 million. And this guy was
supposedly OK with that! Amazing. Wonder if he's still waiting...? ;-)

--
Some people say "life is short". What?? Life is the longest damn thing
anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

inquisitive40

I seen that the Nigerian scam has changed a bit, they are now contacting the people who have already been scammed offering to retrieve their money that they lost the first time "for a small fee" LMOA

Patrick

Hypertweeky

Some countries are very weird, aren't they??

Chessiet

I just got a new twist, also. It seems the guy is dying of cancer, and is vastly wealthy, and wants me to take his money ($18 mil.) to distribute to charity, since he doesn't trust his financial advisors to keep from pocketing the $ themselves.

Apparently he knew I was honest due to my generic company email address

inquisitive40

Well seems that a lot of Nigerian criminals are giving their country a bad name, a few years back, there was a large influx of Nigerian immigrants into Ireland, there was a ton of fraud related to them for the next year or so and the law ended up being changed for opening banks accounts etc just because of these immigrants.

Very bad PR
Patrick