Andy Cook

SAN DIEGO - After 28 years practicing family law in San Diego, Andy Cook is known and respected enough that many of his cases come by way of referrals from other attorneys, especially complicated cases.

Other times, complicated cases arrive in other ways. “I’ve had people change lawyers in favor of me,” he said.

Since the pandemic, Cook said he has had four or five cases “that just seem to go on for years” without settlements. In the last couple of years alone, he has had three trials that lasted two or three days, unusual in family law matters. One involved difficult child support issues, including imputation of income and paying for a private school.

Another especially complicated case settled last May. It involved both a dissolution of marriage and dissolution of domestic partnership between Cook’s client, who had retired by the time the case was filed and a much younger man who had worked as a bar dancer prior to their eight-year marriage. Sandstrom v. Davis, 19FL010638C (S.D. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 30, 2019).

Issues included spousal support, tracing and imputation of income. One question dealt with whether Cook’s client must pay support after having retired and whether his spouse was due any share of his pension benefits. Another dealt with the spouse’s ability or inability to work during the pandemic. The client owned two pieces of property acquired before marriage, another he had inherited and a fourth acquired during the marriage, Cook said.

Spousal and child support have continued to be major issues in family law matters. Cook has a difficult case now, which he cannot identify, where the child is over the age of 18 but is disabled. In that sort of case, “if the court finds the child is incapacitated and incapable of self-support and likely to become a public charge, the court can order adult child support for as long as that person is disabled,” Cook said. “You could have somebody 90 years old paying for a 60-year-old child … until the parent dies.”

He had a challenging case several years ago involving one parent’s desire to move from the U.S. to Sri Lanka. “We were able to win and stop the move away. In family law, it probably doesn’t get any bigger than that.”

Cook has taken some cases on appeal, but he prefers to concentrate on making a good record at the trial level to ensure he has “put in the record the facts that are going to be most helpful for my client” in the event of an appeal. “In some ways, that’s more rewarding than the appeal itself.”

For that reason, he almost always hires a court reporter. “Making a record and documenting facts is one of the parts of the job that I enjoy the most.”

Cook, who is now 60, noted that men in his family continued working late into life. “I feel as though I’ll keep going for quite a number of years more,” he said.

- DON DEBENEDICTIS