What Impacts the Cost of Divorce Litigation?
A huge part of what makes divorce a stressful experience is that our clients are living in a state of limbo. Many do not know what their home life will look like after the divorce is final. The process of divorce also, very often, includes the process of looking for new housing, hiring new childcare providers, perhaps moving your children to a new school. All of these unknowns can seem daunting, so the last thing anyone wants while they are in the midst of uncertainty is to be surprised by a hefty legal bill.
Hiring an Attorney is certainly an investment. Experienced legal counsel is often invaluable during the course of a family law case – but those services are not free. Our firm does its best to help clients be aware of what to expect in terms of cost. However, just like no two families are the same – no two divorces or child custody and visitation cases will need the exact same handling. Every family law case is different and will run into different costs and levels of cost.
This article aims to help make you aware of variables that can impact the cost of litigation in a divorce or custody case. If you keep these things in mind, you can help yourself avoid unnecessary costs and delays. Let’s get started.
What impacts litigation Cost?
Several items and nuances can impact the cost of a legal case. As you move forward, keep the below in mind.
Court costs and filing fees: Every divorce and custody case will require some amount of filing official papers with the court. There is no getting around this, and you should anticipate that some amount of money will have to be spent here. An experienced Attorney may be able to help you shift these costs to become the other side’s responsibility, but that cannot be guaranteed.
How Aggressively the Other Side Fights: The more congenial and cooperative both sides are, the less time and back-and-forth is involved. This can significantly impact the length of time a case takes to process AND how much the case costs to process through the courts.
Your Goals: Your goals might impact how long the case takes to be processed, as well. Do you dearly want to retain an asset, such as the family home, that the other side desperately wants as well? Do you want to retain full custody of your child, while your child’s other parent wants 50/50? Do you have a reason to wait to file certain motions – like waiting out the time period for the child custody case to come under a Tennessee court’s jurisdiction?
Discussing your goals with your attorney at the outset of your case will enable your attorney to best represent what you really want, and give you an idea of what to expect in terms of cost.
How Involved You want to be: There are several positive contributions you can make to your case that can reduce costs. Timely providing your legal counsel with potential required forms such as your retirement statement or child’s school records will help reduce cost and time because when you do the leg work to collect that information your Attorney does not have to.
Additionally, you should always discuss necessary matters and important questions with your Attorney. However, you need to understand that an Attorney will charge their time to the case that they are spending the time working on.
Contact Fort, Holloway & Rogers
Our firm strives to provide our clients with the legal counsel they need at a price that is fit for them. Contact our esteemed Franklin family lawyers to begin discussing your case, and see how our team can start working for you.
Sources:
tn.gov/revenue/taxes/local-taxes/litigation-fines-and-fees.html
tncourts.gov/rules/rules-civil-procedure/5404
