Do we need to attend Status Conference? Divorce

Status conferences are set when there is no progress on your case. The easiest way to do it is to take the required steps to finalize this divorce but exchanging and filing the financial disclosures and setting this matter for a trial or enter into a stipulated judgment, which does not require your presence.

... and the courts are not open and God knows when they will be.

You heard wrong. There is no mandatory status conference every three months. But if you want to file in CA, then your spouse must be a legal resident here for at least 6 months prior to filing.

At least one of you must meet the residency requirements for you to be able to file in California. You should retain local counsel to handle the matter for you, but there is no practice of holding a settlement conference very 3 months. The information provided to you in that regard is incorrect.

You may be misunderstanding. The Courts have "Case Management Conferences" at six, 12 and 18 month intervals. From county to county, they are handled differently. Some counties are more demanding about participation than others. Look--if you feel you can't afford a lawyer to do your entire divorce, please, please---call around until you find a quality family law attorney willing to give you a full-blown, comprehensive consultation (90 minutes to 2 hours) to explain the entire thing to you. Pay for that time and information. Not all lawyers do it. Smaller, solo law practices may be more likely to give you that kind of time when they know they aren't going to land a big client long-term.

Some counties set regular status conferences to monitor progress of your case, but you should be able to arrange to appear by telephone. Even if you don't want to hire an attorney to handle the entire divorce, you will likely want someone to help you prepare papers, get your spouse served, and advise you on steps to get to a final Judgment.