Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: Bifurcation

In the cases I have been involved in the term bifurcation refers to separating th entry of a judgement disolving the marriage from the judgment dividing the property. The purpose would be to allow the marriage to be disolved at the earliest time. Often this is because one of the spouses wants to get remarried or to reduce income taxes, by allowing the parties to file as single individuals rather the married filing separately.

In my experience bifurcation is neither good or bad. The determination of whether or not to bifurcate must be made on the facts of the each case.