Law Offices of Anne D. Bonfiglio

You might wonder how anyone could ever characterize the painful, draining, costly, time-consuming emotional divorce process as good.  The key is that divorce, while an ending, is also a beginning. In fact, when love is gone and marriage is more pain than comfort, divorce is the only way to get to a new life and happiness. I characterize a good divorce as one that you can progress through in one piece, coming through financially whole and emotionally stable.  It is my goal to help my clients obtain a good divorce, or as close as we can get to a good divorce, in every case.

Third, my image of our lawyer/client  partnership is of co-pilots flying a plane.

Choosing the right family attorney for you is no easy task.

How I Work

First, I believe a good divorce is possible.

If you choose me as your attorney we'll be working closely together. Let me share three key themes of my practice that influence how I will approach your case and how I work.

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Second, I believe in consciously separating the three primary aspects of a divorce action as much as possible.

Serving clients and families throughout the San Francisco Bay Area

Your family law matter will involve three parts --one financial, one legal and one emotional.  The three parts proceed concurrently and are in many ways intertwined. But they are also distinct parts. You need to process your emotions as you go through your divorce but they can't drive your decisions -- if they do your outcomes are rarely what they could and should be.  The legal procedures of family law are not unique to your case but your financial situation is unique. Care is needed to make a smart financial plan to get you through your case and on to your new life intelligently. Sometimes the smartest move is to involve financial professionals in the planning task.  At every juncture while proceeding on all three fronts we need to narrow our focus as much as possible to make good forward progress without unnecessary distractions and detours.

What does that mean and how does it work? Think of your divorce as the journey it is. As noted above, it has three elements -- financial, legal and emotional. I understand the divorce journey as a plane flight. On this flight I am the pilot because I have familiarity with the route through the legal system. I'm familiar with the flight path and the different issues that come up and can take the lead in navigating from here to there. You, the client, are the co-pilot because you built the plane we're flying. This isn't a divorce, it's your divorce. And you know all the facts, history,  wrinkles and idiosyncracies of your situation. Meaning that we navigate together through the system, combining your knowledge of the plane and my knowledge of the path to get to the destination you want to reach. To extend that metaphor a bit further, we can think of the emotions that are involved as forming the runway that we use on the take-off and landing.  An underpinning to the flight that can make for a bumpy start, landing or both, but not really a part of the flight itself. There is no escaping the emotional toll that the divorce process brings. My goal is to support you in obtaining the legal outcomes you need while you process your emotions in a healthy way.