The Cost of Divorce Part 1

A Series exploring how to control and measure the cost of divorce in Bucks County, PA.

Part I:

Almost the first question out of the mouth of each client who comes to talk to me about divorce in Bucks County is: “How much is this going to cost me?” In 21 years, I’ve been struck with the universality of this concern, no matter the economic status, race, religion, ability, disability or geography of each individual.

In 2013, the respected legal resource site Avvo.com surveyed 890 of their consumer users and 447 attorneys, according to the Huffington Post. Avvo found that the cost of divorce was the biggest concern for 58 percent of respondents without children. Other top concerns included property division (42 percent), the length of time a divorce would take (27 percent) and alimony (22 percent). For individuals with children, cost is second to custody concerns (53 percent vs. 35 percent), but it remained the top factor cited as to why they ultimately chose to hire a specific attorney.

The quick and most honest answer I can give to this question is: the legal cost is completely dependent on how many times I have to go to court on your behalf. Period. If all I’m doing is filing documents about an uncontested divorce – with no assets to divide or children to discuss – that’s about as low cost as you can go. In 2015, my fee is $750 for this service, plus court and filing fees.

But no two divorces are the same. And, there are a variety of processes to arrive at the point of filing for divorce, each one involving more or less of my services. For instance, in my office we offer traditional litigation services, mediation, a newer approach called collaborative law and the aforementioned document filing service. The price differential of each is frequently a part of a client’s decision of how to proceed.

Which brings me back to the question my clients ask me: “How much is this going to cost me?” To me, I hear three separate questions behind that inquiry. First, I hear my client asking “What is the actual dollar amount, or expense in addition to my regular living costs, that I have to spend to be free of this marriage?” This is a fairly straightforward budgetary concern, a natural one for a family that is preparing to lose the economies of one household and set up two independent lives.

The second question I hear behind those words is: “What are the fixed costs of divorce, and what can I control or influence to keep costs down?”

The third, implied plea behind the question is a more esoteric one: “What is this process going to cost me emotionally and how fast can I make the pain stop.” I freely acknowledge I am not a therapist, social worker or psychologist (though I am married to one, so I guess I might have more insight into the therapeutic process than some). A family law attorney’s role is to deal with the legal processes and detailed factual nuances that lead to an eventual divorce decree.

Yet it would be imprecise to claim that divorce attorneys do not, in some degree, cope with a client’s emotional state as part of gathering the details and information necessary for the legal process. Divorce law, after all, was created to mediate, regulate and organize the emotional process of separation and divorce in order to create uniform and universally accepted ways of identifying legal responsibilities of the participants.

So, when I hear the question “How much will it cost me?” I’ve learned to listen to which question the client is actually asking. Attorneys only control the rate they charge for services. Ultimately, the final cost of divorce is determined by the participants themselves.

Coming up next: Part II “What is the dollar amount my divorce will cost me?”

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