Andy Cook

Law Office of Andy Cook -- San Diego

Cook describes his practice as quite varied. Over the years, he has handled cases dealing with paying child support for a person over the age of 18, the military housing allowance, a recalcitrant husband who refused to sign necessary documents and private school tuition. And he has twice represented women set to remarry who discovered they weren't actually divorced.

Over the last several years, the pandemic has added some wrinkles to his practice. "We're starting to see more arguments about how custody should be affected by the vaccination status of the parties or ... whether the children should be vaccinated," he said.

Previous disputes were about masking and sheltering in place. Now, it comes up in many ways. "It's become part of the checklist now as far as where people stand on the issues," he said.

Some years ago, Cook won an appeal on an issue of first impression. He argued on behalf of a wife that when a court calculated child and spousal support, it could include as part of her husband's gross pay his nontaxable military Basic Allowance for Housing/ Subsistence payments. In re Marriage of Stanton, 190 Cal. App .4th 547 (Cal. App. 4th Dist., Nov. 24, 2010).

In another case, he had to have the court appoint an elisor to sign all the documents required to sell a family home because the husband refused. Along with an order to list the home, Cook also won $15,000 in attorney's fees because of the husband's recalcitrance.

Last January, Cook finalized a divorce for a woman who thought she had been divorced for 20 years. Unfortunately, her previous attorney had dropped the ball. The new problem in the case was the statute that requires all civil cases to be prosecuted within five years of filing. If it isn't, "dismissal is mandatory if there's a motion," he said. But in this case, the parties stipulated to allowing the belated divorce to proceed to conclusion.

He had a similar case years before. In that one, the wife discovered she wasn't divorced after she'd sent out wedding invitations. "We expedited judgment on the previous marriage,"

Cook said. Cook said the biggest thrill of his career has been serving on the San Diego County Bar Association board of directors from late 2013 through the end of 2016. Among the issues the board faced was expressing its support for U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, who presidential candidate Trump criticized for his handling of a lawsuit against Trump University.

Winning the election to the bar board was especially gratifying for Cook because he had run and lost four times before. After his win, people would congratulate him by saying they had voted for him. "And I would say, well, I'm sure at some point in your life you probably did."

- Don Debenedictis