Andy Cook

Andy Cook has practiced family since opening his firm in 1995 and said his work has never been boring. A California Western School of Law graduate and a member of the San Diego legal community for 34 years, he now has a full-time associate and a full-time paralegal working for him.

Recently, Cook had success in securing a Family Code section 2640 claim of reimbursement in one case.

The parties owned real property that was being sold, Cook said. As a result of the client’s claim, the client received a lump sum payment off the top before the rest of the property proceeds were divided equally.

“Section 2640 provides for reimbursement to a party who used their separate property to acquire community property,” Cook explained. “The burden of proof is on the party who is making the claim. Often, if not always, this will require the moving party to conduct tracing.”

He said he and his team were able to get their ducks in a row by doing discovery, including deposition discovery.

“The section 2640 claim was difficult because it involved many transactions and opposing counsel resisted the claim until the very end,” Cook said. “Along with spousal support, this was the most serious issue in the case.”

In a separate custody matter, he was successful in obtaining a post-judgment change.

“In the other case, the parties had already gone to trial and primary custody of the parties had been awarded to the non-client,” Cook explained.

Then, there was evidence of difficulties that one of the children was having with the non-client. Cook and his team filed a post-judgment Request for Order. The non-client opposed the RFO, but Cook’s team was helped by documentary evidence that showed that their allegations were true.

“Normally, after a judgment, to alter or ‘flip’ custody, the moving party has to show a change of circumstances just since the last order or judgment,” he said. “In this case, there had been a relatively short period of time between the operative judgment and the RFO, which ordinarily would make showing a change of circumstances difficult.”

But fortunately, Cook and his team prevailed, which had the domino effect of ending their client’s obligation to pay child support to the non-client and caused the non-client to have to pay support to the client.

Cook said given the frequent use of attorney IOLTA trust accounts in family law matters, not just for advanced payment of fees and costs but for proceeds from the sale of real property, he sees continued education of lawyers about trust accounting becoming more and more important.

“Also, there will be continued debate about new CRPC 8.3 and when an attorney must report another attorney to the State Bar,” Cook said.