Unfortunately, divorce can be an expensive process. Family law attorney Lee Rosen shares some tips on what you can do to cut costs in your Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, or North Carolina divorce without cutting corners.
How to spend less on your divorce Transcript
Attorney fees for a divorce can be crazy. They can really get out of hand. Is there any way that you can spend less on your divorce? Hi, I’m Lee Rosen for the Rosen Law Firm. Thanks for watching today. You can absolutely save money on attorney’s fees if you’re willing to pull up your sleeves and go to work. You’ve got to decide if your value your time or your money more.
Basically, attorney’s fees are all about how much time it takes to get the work done. And the more you will take on yourself, the less you will spend on your attorney and on their staff. What should you do? Get your attorney to agree before you hire the attorney that you can do much of the legwork on your own. That might involve being your own courier, doing your own copying or scanning of documents or organizing financial records. If you don’t do it, someone else will and that someone else will usually bill you at $100-plus per hour.
Next up, don’t call your attorney every time a thought pops into your head. Keep a list and only call once a week. I know things seem urgent. But if you want to save money, you’re going to have to exercise some discipline. When attorneys bill hourly, it takes a month or so for the first bill to come. Lots of clients get it after they get that first bill and they stop calling. You don’t need to learn that lesson the hard way. Just stop calling now.
What else can you do to save money? Be reasonable. Don’t be one of those folks that says, “I will never pay” fill in the blank, or “I will never allow my child to” fill in the blank. If you take extreme positions, you’re always going to have higher fees. In most cases, you end up doing at least a little bit of whatever it was that you said you would never do. So go ahead and be reasonable and start being reasonable early in the process. That’s going to save you money.
Now, I can hear some of you saying, “I can’t be reasonable because he or she won’t ever be reasonable.” Well, that’s your call, but it’s also your money. You need to do whatever works for you and for your budget. Consider being reasonable. Do a cost benefit analysis of every decision you make. Think about each decision. “Will it cost me more than it saves me”? Think about the financial impact of each and every thing you do as part of your case.
Finally, settle the case. Settle it early. The faster you make the deal, the less you’re going to spend. You might think that this process needs to be long and drawn out. It doesn’t. It can be done quickly. Sometimes, people resolve these cases in days, not weeks, not months.
The key to a quick settlement is focus. When both husband and wife get focused on the details, rather than on the broad concepts, the case moves rapidly to conclusion. Start thinking details. Start making lists. Then, when you’re communicating about the case, you’re going to be talking about specifics. And the next thing you know, the case will be settled and it will be over.
I hope my advice is going to help you save some money. This doesn’t have to be nearly as expensive as it becomes for some people. You can do it for less. For more information about divorce in North Carolina, visit our website at rosen.com. I’m Lee Rosen for the Rosen Law Firm.
