Seminar Draws 500 People Seeking Advice on Divorce : * Relationships: Program offers workshops on the legal, financial and emotional aspects of ending a marriage.

Separated from his wife of 14 years, Mark Denham, a Lancaster electrician, came home from work Thursday and they were there in the mail. Divorce papers.

If good timing is a term that can be applied to divorce, Denham’s situation might qualify. Before hiring an attorney or taking one step down the lonely trail to the end of his marriage, Denham enrolled Saturday morning in a free divorce seminar at Cal State Northridge.

And he was not alone. An estimated 500 people attended the daylong program sponsored by Los Angeles County Superior Court.

The seminar, held once a year in Los Angeles County, brought together marriage counselors, psychologists, mediators, attorneys and other experts in panel discussions to help those attending learn what resources are available to them and to provide a better understanding of the divorce process and its effect on families.

A flea-market of information for the soon-to-be-single, the seminar offered free legal advice, financial planning, even child care for those who brought their children.

Clutching his divorce documents and surveying the crowd, Denham said the seminar made him feel less apprehensive about his situation.

“You feel a lot of support just from knowing you are not the only one going through this,” he said. “I came because I want to figure out what I can do to help myself and protect myself in this situation. I’m an electrician, not a lawyer. I have kids and I want to do the best I can for them in this.

“It’s a crazy thing. I know it’s not fun and it’s not easy and nobody ever wins.”

Like Denham, most who stepped into the auditorium for orientation came in alone. Some had dropped children off with the child-care staff. Some brought their divorce files with them and many took notes. Others were unconsciously nodding as speakers discussed the pitfalls of the divorce process. A few even came with the partners they are divorcing, explaining that problems pop up even in the most amicable of divorces.

“These are people in all phases of divorce,” said Hugh McIsaac, director of Family Court Services for the Superior Court. “These are people contemplating it, in it, or who have already been through it and are still having problems with it. We hope this gives them a sense of community--a shared vision of going through this process.”

Seminar workshops focused on adjusting emotionally and financially to divorce, how to deal with children of divorce and how to handle the legal questions--such as choosing an attorney--that come with the decision to end a marriage.

“The public is getting the benefit of a great deal of expertise at no charge,” said Alan B. Haber, presiding judge of the Van Nuys Superior Court and a speaker at the seminar.

But amid the serious considerations and topics, the organizers of the seminar made room for humor. Panels of marriage mediators and counselors took to role-playing to illustrate emotional and social issues of divorce. Though convincing as battling couples, the arguments often brought laughter when carried out in front of an audience.

A woman named Diane who attended the seminar said she was having a difficult time adjusting to divorce but found some solace in the seminar.

“I’m right in the middle of a divorce,” she said, shaking her head. “Anybody who has been there knows how hard it can be. But this is good. It takes away some of that feeling of being overwhelmed by it all. And it lets you know there are things you can do, that it is not just in the lawyer’s hands.”

Don Zelinsky, a workshop panelist and president of the San Fernando Valley Bar Assn., said the major aim of the seminar, now in its fifth year, is to prepare people and their children for what is ahead so they can make the best choices. He said that sometimes the seminars have shown the best choice is to halt the divorce.

“This is to help take the fear out of people who feel that divorcing is the only way to go,” he said. “But it has the opposite effect in some cases. It does tell someone you can save your marriage.”