Legal Question in Family Law in California

if you dismiss the 2005 case, you will be throwing away the appearance (filing) fee of around $300. call the court and ask to have the cases consolidated (or appear at the status conference and ask) they should allow you to do that and then your case will be the lead and her 2010 will be considered her response to yours. this allows you to proceed at your pace, but the courts won't usually make any rulings without a request from you. you don't mention children or property or support. if you will be needing court orders, you should probably hire an attorney to go to court for you.

I don't know what Ms. Freeman is talking about. You don't consolidate cases by a phone call. What you do is you file a notice of related case in both cases. Do this well ahead of the status conference in your old case so it gets in the court's file before the conference. The court will almost certainly either order them consolodated, or hers dismissed and yours to go forward, on the court's own initiative. If the court does not, ask that they be consolidated. Worst case the court will tell you to file a motion, in which case the better motion would probably be to consolidate, to preserve any progress made in the second case. After that, as Ms. Freeman says, you have to ask the court to move the case forward. Family law cases do not move in most counties unless the parties ask them to.