“Why can’t a lawyer just tell me how much my divorce will cost?”
This is a frustration shared by many people. It does not seem to make sense.
When you take your car to the shop to get your brakes replaced, they can give you an estimate, and it’s usually pretty close.
A dentist can tell you how much a root canal will cost.
A doctor can tell you how much he will charge for a hip replacement.
What is it about lawyers that keeps them from giving you a set price for a divorce?
Five Reasons Why Lawyer Fees are Unpredictable
There a many reasons for this, and I will try to explain five of them below.
You Are Not in Control
In a divorce, neither you, nor your lawyer, are entirely in control of your case.
The progress of your case will be influenced by the actions of two or more additional people:
- the other side – your spouse can help get things done, or cause more work (and fees)
- the other attorney – opposing counsel might handle the case in a way that requires more legal work (and fees)
- the judge – some judges require more discovery, scheduling conferences, pre-trial memorandums and such, which will result in more work (and fees)
- the guardian ad litem – if the court appoints a guardian ad litem, you will have those fees, plus additional work for your attorney (and more fees)
The actions of these other people will either ease and speed up your divorce, or make the process harder and longer. As you might guess, harder and longer will result in higher fees.
A Professional is Paid to Fight You
In a divorce case, the other side usually has a lawyer. This is a highly trained professional that is being paid to fight against you and your own lawyer.
Your spouse’s lawyer may have been instructed to make the process hard and difficult. Perhaps your spouse wants to out-spend you.
Perhaps your spouse does not want the divorce, and wants to delay things in the hopes of eventually reconciling with you. A lawyer can come up with all sorts of tactics to delay the process by requiring more legal work. More work will mean more legal fees.
Your Spouse is Unreasonable
Your spouse might drive up the cost of divorce by being unreasonable.
They might want to fight for custody, even though they work in the oilfield, and spend two weeks in North Dakota and two weeks at home.
They might want all of the property, because they made all the money during the marriage.
They might want spousal support, even after a short marriage.
They might want to make “just this last little change,” every time a settlement document is prepared.
There are many unreasonable things that your spouse might demand. Litigating for things that they are unlikely to get will result in additional legal work (and fees).
that you will need to pay for.
Your Spouse Does Not Participate
One would think that an absent spouse would make things easier. But that is not actually the case.
Say you want to hire an attorney for an uncontested divorce. You and your spouse have been separated for a couple of years, you have no kids, you have already split your stuff, and you do not have any joint debts. Neither you, nor your spouse want anything from the other. You both just want a divorce.
This would ordinarily require the filing of a Complaint for Divorce, an Acceptance of Service, an Affidavit for Divorce, and a Stipulated Decree of Divorce. We would prepare all these documents, you and your spouse would sign them, we would submit all of them to the Court, and then presto, in twenty one days, you are divorced! (This is our $995 divorce).
But, if your spouse does not participate, then we have a few additional costs:
- If he is around here, and we can serve him, then that’s another $50 for the service fee.
- If he is not around, and we don’t know where he is, then we have to serve by publication. This requires the drafting of the affidavit requesting service by publication, drafting the notice of Complaint, having it published in the paper (at about $400 in publication costs), and drafting the post publication affidavit. All this drafting (and filing) results in additional legal fees.
- At this point, we would still draft the Stipulated Decree, in the hopes that your spouse will sign it and avoid additional legal fees.
- If your spouse does not sign the Stipulated Decree, then we have to wait to see if they file an answer to the Complaint.
- If your spouse continues to do nothing and do not file an answer, then we have to draft an affidavit and Request for Entry of Default, and a Certificate of Default (and charge more fees).
- Once the Clerk of Court enters the default, then we have to draft a Request and Order Setting Default Hearing, and have the hearing scheduled with the Court (and charge more fees).
- Then we would revise the stipulated decree and turn it into a Default Decree of Divorce, meet with you to go over the document, as well as to rehearse your court appearance at the default hearing.
- Finally, we will have to actually go to Court, appear in front of the Judge, you will have to testify, and then the Judge will sign the decree.
As you can see, your spouse’s failure to participate can turn a simple, quick and inexpensive divorce into one that takes several months, and costs many hundreds of dollars of additional fees and costs.
Divorce Cases Are Emotional
Divorce cases, as most other cases, are often driven by emotions.
When emotions are involved, people often act in irrational ways. They may know that it does not make sense to act a certain way, but they cannot help themselves and do it anyway.
I once participated in a divorce where we were on day two of trial. There was a business involved and several pieces of valuable real estate. Both sides had presented evidence on values and arguments on who those things should be assigned to. There was really no fight about the big things.
But we were in Court still, and our clients were racking up hundreds of dollars an hour in legal fees. All because they could not agree on who should get things like the washers and dryers (there were two sets), scrap lumber in the garage, and literally, boxes of nails!
These were intelligent, successful people. They surely knew their attorneys’ time cost a lot more than it would have cost to buy new washers and dryers, and lumber and nails. But they did it anyway, because it was their divorce, and they were emotional, and they could not help themselves.
Conclusion
These are just some of the reasons why it is difficult to quote a fee for a divorce. There are many others.
While we try to make our fees predictable, there will always be some variability. The best we can do is give a pretty good estimate for how much each part of a divorce case will cost, as we go along the process.
by Steve Harton