Legal Divorce

Before making your decision…

1. Find out what you need to know and do to get divorced
2. Understand how the legal system works, including its pitfalls, so you won’t get hurt
3. Find out the myths that most people believe about divorce

What it takes to get a divorce with a positive outcome…

1. The right information.
2. Mutually agreeing to all the issues.
3. Negotiation, cooperation, and compromise – No one gets everything they want.
4. Empathy – Being able to put yourself in your spouse’s position and understanding their point of view.
5. Understanding your emotions so you don’t sabotage yourself.
6. Planning your financial future and knowing how to divide your assets equitably.
7. Talking to your spouse during the divorce instead of relying on your lawyers, which will work against you. You are the one who knows your spouse best.
8. Avoiding the adversarial system and doing a Pro se no fault divorce which is a do it yourself divorce. This means that you craft your Agreement with a mediator or without one.

The Pitfalls of taking the lawyer/court route…

Lawyers and judges can wield astonishing power. This often means you lose yours. You probably know many stories of wasted time and squandered money with little resolved. Retainer fees can be very costly and are often used up on unnecessary paperwork and phone calls. You don’t want to be left with an empty wallet and have nothing to show for it.

When you hire a lawyer, you have given your lawyer the keys to the courthouse – This means that you have handed your power over to the  lawyer who can push you through the system setting pre-trials and filing motions without your permission and even force you to settle in court.

Many lawyers may not give you the information you need to make informed decisions.

Also, when you and your spouse retain an attorney, now instead of two people not communicating well, you will have four people not communicating well. And by the time the information gets back to you, it turns into something else just like the telephone game you played as a child.

You do have certain rights under the law. As it turns out, these rights are not guaranteed – they act more like guidelines. You can actually go over these guidelines or under them. However, if you go to court, you will have to fight for these rights. Often/Usually judges make a ruling depending on which lawyer presents the best case, not based on your rights. Whether your state is an equitable distribution state or a community property state, it is a rare event to see property equally divided in a court judgment. It usually does not work that way.

Our system of justice is an adversarial one. It is trial by combat where people duel it out and whoever survives wins. Your lawyer will use any means to try and prove you are right and that your spouse is wrong. You and your spouse are set up as adversaries, enemies in combat trying to win against the opposition at all costs.

In addition, the legal system does not have tools for helping you resolve your emotional, financial, or legal problems, or helping you negotiate amicably with your spouse. It is a system based on conflict, making it virtually impossible to reach agreements.

Typical scenarios:

Sometimes the attorneys will collude with one another and privately come up with a plan manipulating you both to settle. No matter how nice a lawyer is or well intentioned, there are certain adversarial procedures and guidelines, they must follow. This causes additional conflict and trouble making the cost of divorce high emotionally, financially, and legally.

Also, many lawyers do not have an organized plan for your case and haphazardly argue over one point at a time. Arguing over one point at a time can cost you a fortune. As a result, many cases last for years, draining the participants’ resources and may cause them to be outpriced by their attorneys. Also, lawyers proceed as if you will go to court when only 3% of the cases actually become court cases.

Many divorces are settled on the courtroom steps creating deficient settlements. The fighting spouses settle because they fear losing control to the court or because they are intimidated at the thought of a trial and rightly so. The settlement is not reached through mutual understanding or consideration of mutual needs but through coercion, intimidation, manipulation, and fear. It is not surprising that most of these agreements break down bringing the couples back to court for years following the divorce. It is possible to get it right the first time.

What if your spouse retains a lawyer, do you still need a lawyer?

If you think your spouse wants to retain a lawyer and will refuse to mediate, you can still see a mediator alone. The mediator can draft a divorce proposal for you covering all the issues that need to be negotiated in a divorce. You give that proposal to your spouse, and they check off what they agree to and what they don’t. Hopefully, once your partner sees the ease in doing it this way and how much money you will save, he or she may agree to mediate the remaining issues, and you will be home free.

If your spouse refuses to mediate and retains an attorney, then you will be drawn into the system. If that is the case, you are prepared because you have a complete proposal in your hip pocket (and hopefully have done your legal and financial homework). This puts you ahead of the game and will save you thousands of dollars. You now have an outline to follow that sometimes takes years to get in litigation, so whatever work you have done in mediation will not be lost.

If needed, you can seek legal counsel and pay by the hour rather than retaining an attorney and paying a huge retainer. However, if your spouse is bent on going through the legal system and playing hard ball, you will eventually be forced to retain a lawyer unless you feel comfortable representing yourself. 

Even if you retain an attorney, it would be wise to have the support of a divorce coach or mediator.

The Advantages of the Best Choice Divorce Route:

If you knew just how treacherous the legal system is, you and your spouse would immediately sit down and hammer out an Agreement that fits your family’s needs. You can purchase the Separation Agreement Template right on this site. You need it to get divorced. It is comprehensive and contains everything the court requires, as well as all the choices and options available to you so you can protect your future. This is the key element in navigating a successful divorce. You will have all the information you need up front. There is no guessing. No information left out. You will know what your bottom line is.

You can either fill out the agreement by yourselves or have a mediator do it after you have decided all the issues. Drafting your Agreement is included in the price of the divorce package. Either way, you simplify the process a thousand-fold and successfully retain control of your divorce process.

Summary

Divorce is a bumpy road at best. However, there is a period early in the divorce process when you decide whether you will divorce decently or poorly. My concern with the legal system is that it pushes you in the wrong direction, encouraging and reinforcing your worst impulses rather than your best. The critical task for every divorcing person is to take responsibility and to have empathy for their partner. After all, you did once choose to love this person. Do you really want to make them an enemy? In the adversarial system, the blame is shifted to the other spouse. When you take responsibility for your divorce, it is possible to disentangle without hurting one another and to maintain the integrity of the family. When you approach your divorce in this way, you will be much happier with the outcome – and you will get positive results in less time for much less money.