Legal Question in Family Law in California

If it's uncontested, the parties can agree to whatever they want as far as amount and duration of spousal support. If the legalities get involoved, however, your sister is not right.

First off amount is never mandated. There are guideline amounts that come out of a formula that can be run on a computer program called DissoMaster, but the court has a great deal of flexibility in setting spousal support up or down from the guideline (the court can even adjust off the DissoMaster amount for child support, but with much less flexibility).

Second, she is wrong about the duration of support. The Family Code expressly states that it is the objective of spousal support to provide for the supported spouse while they "become self-supporting within a reasonable time." In a marriage that is not "of long duration" there is a presumption that 1/2 the length of the marriage is a reasonable time, but the code expressly states that nothing in the preumption prevents the court from ordering a longer or lesser time. There is also a presumption that a a marriage of ten years or more is of long duration and less than ten years is not, but again that presumption is not mandatory and the court can find a shorter marriage is "of long duration" and a longer one is not.

There also is a rule that in a marriage of short duration, once the spousal support order ends, the court loses jurisdiction over the case (unless there are other bases for jurisdiction like unexpired child support). So if you want to extend or modify support, you have to do it before the original order expires. If the marriage is of long duration, the court has the OPTION to retain jurisdiction indefinitely to order, stop, modify or resume spousal support. But again, the court has to make a ruling on whether the marriage is of long or short duration. Then if it is short, jurisdiction automatically ends with the support order. If it is long, the court then has to decide whether to reserve indefinite jurisdiction and put that in an order.

Lastly, on how to handle the filing, I don't like paralegal services. While some of them are great, too many of them are incompetent or scams. I went through an uncontested divorce many years before I started practicing Family Law. At the time I was a hot-shot young litigator at a major international firm with a huge law library at my disposal, but I found the best way for me to do my own divorce was to use the Nolo Press book for lay people: "How to Do Your Own Divorce in California." It's easy to read and covers everything step-by-step.