How can I serve my spouse divorce paper?

You can contact the lawyer and see if he or she will accept the papers for your spouse. You could hire a process server or you can have a friend over 18 serve the papers.

Have him personally served even if he has an attorney. Get an attorney yourself to help you and ask for child support, spousal support and attorney fees. Opinion not legal advice.

Inasmuch as your spouse has retained a lawyer, I would recommend you also retain a lawyer. You are no match going up against an attorney, by yourself. Lawyers will sometimes work on getting paid from your spouse and will not charge you any monies other than out-of-pocket costs. If you can't find a lawyer to work on that basis, consider finding a Legal Aid attorney to represent you. Good luck.

If he responded to your petition and filed the response then you need not worry about formally serving him. His appearance starts the clock running and allows you to go forward with the next step. If you are unclear about what that should be, you should consult a family law attorney or facilitator.

Ask his attorney to accept service of process. If the attorney says he won't do that, serve your husband with the papers so the time to get a final will start passing. It takes six months from the date the other side is served with the papers.

Get a lawyer or go to the courthouse self-help desk. When you are this lost at this early stage of the divorce, and he has a lawyer, you are going to be in mud real soon. You'll be wasting your time and the other attorney's time - not that you care about the other attorney's time. However, your total lack of understanding of basic issues indicates that you will have many, many, many questions after this. So (i) get a lawyer or (ii) go to your local court house and ask about self-help assistance. There are pro bono offices all over California that help people file and understand the legal process if they cannot afford a lawyer.