Best Adoption Lawyers in Santa Barbara, CA

As required under California law, all clients must sign a mandatory Contract for Service at the time we are hired. Payment in full for our document preparation services is required at that time. Third-party costs such as court filing fees, etc. are not included in our service fees and are paid as they are incurred.

As a self-represented individual, the client is always in control of their own legal processes. Once our office has emailed a client completed paperwork for signature, it is up to the client when they want to proceed with the next step of signing and returning the documents for further processing. Clients should keep in mind, however, that California forms are subject to updates and revisions by the Judicial Council of California. A substantial delay in returning completed documents could result in paperwork having to be reprocessed due to a form update, which would incur a reprocessing fee.

Many courts are converting to efiling. This, unfortunately, does not eliminate the need for our office to have original, signed documents returned to us. When returning signed documents, please make sure you mail the original, signed documents to our corporate office by mail. In some instances, we can start the processing with an electronic version of signed documents, but this is not the case in all circumstances. Either way, our office will always require original signed documents to be returned to us if we are processing them with the court or other agency.