Does a divorce need to be expensive? Absolutely not!
We have all heard horror stories where parties spend $100,000 or more on their divorce. Some couples make their divorce the last fight of their marriage. If the the parties have the financial means, attorneys will gladly represent the parties in a protracted divorce. It is a dirty secret among divorce lawyers that they make more money by prolonging a divorce case than by resolving the case.
Money is the fuel that drives the divorce litigation machine. If the parties don’t have money or they don’t want to spend a small fortune litigating their divorce case, they can and should enter into a Separation and Property Settlement Agreement to resolve their custody, visitation, support, and property issues.
I recently represented a physician in his divorce case in Montgomery County Circuit Court. The physician had 3 minor children, owned multiple homes, earned over $250,000 per year, and had numerous retirement accounts. His divorce case could have been extremely complicated, time-consuming and expensive. However, in 10-weeks, I was able to resolve all the issues and obtain a judgment of absolute divorce. The entire cost of the physician’s divorce was less than $6,000.00.
Clients are best served by attorneys who can both litigate a divorce case and negotiate a settlement. In the physician’s case, his wife and her attorney were willing, ready, and able to discuss settlement, because neither party wanted to spend a small fortune on attorney’s fees. My best advice is to find a divorce attorney who knows how to and wants to negotiate a separation and property settlement agreement at the onset of the divorce case.
