Blogs from March, 2019

The FEAR OF THE COST OF DIVORCE:

Divorce just costs too much. I'm afraid that I won't be able to handle that. Like many of the other fears, this one is rational. The cost of a contested divorce, especially one which involves custody, can be financially onerous. However, through hiring the right attorney, and even being able to negotiate certain things with your spouse without the need for the attorney, you can get through a divorce process at a reasonable cost. Sure, it may not be cheap, but it will be reasonable.

One of the ways to get through your divorce more cost-effectively is by negotiating the issue of custody with your spouse. Another is by being as organized as possible when bringing documents to your lawyer. Providing your attorney with organized financial documents will reduce the expense you will incur by having the attorney staff organizing your documents for you.

Promptly returning your attorney's calls may also reduce the amount of time the attorney expends trying to reach you, or their efforts to send letters or emails to you in order to secure documents or information.

In addition, it is extremely important to heed your attorney's legal advice and to ask probing questions about why that advice is being given. I find that costs are also incurred when a party has received advice from his or her attorney only to rebuff that advice thereby causing them to incur more expenses in the long run. This is especially true of strategy in litigation proceedings. Remember you hired your attorney because you trusted them. Allow them to guide you through this process using the skills they have hopefully honed over their years of experience. And, if your question your attorney's ability to properly represent your interests deal with that concern immediately by seeking the second opinion of another attorney