The legal process of divorce is confusing and frightening for many people. Most people do not know where to begin, and they don’t have an understanding of the different ways to get divorced. Should you hire an attorney?  Do you want to litigate or have a collaborative process?  How is this different than mediation? How much will all this cost and where will the funds come from? These are normal questions, and the answers are easier when you are educated.

Here are 3 ways to get divorced:

The traditional process for divorce has been to hire an attorney for each individual, to file paperwork that starts the court timeline, go through an often lengthy and exhausting discovery process where the spouses seek to learn the full financial picture, and then to try to come to some agreement before the court date arrives. 

If you are unable to settle, you prepare for trial (which can often be a long time away depending on how heavy the court docket might be), you go to court with your lawyers (which can sometimes take multiple days) and then a judge makes a ruling.  The drawback to this is that it can take years in some instances for the discovery prior to a court hearing, the courts are often backed up with cases.

Once it gets to court, the judge decides about the unsettled areas applying the divorce statute in effect in your area, often without an ability to deviate a lot from the statute to your and your family’s particular situation.  It is also expensive and can heighten negative interactions and emotions. People’s dirty laundry becomes part of the public court record, which often means that anyone with an ID can access your divorce court file, including your friends, neighbors, or even your adult children.

The often cheaper and least contentious of the other options is to go through mediation  or a collaborative divorce. A mediator is a neutral  party and cannot offer legal advice or prepare legal documents. The mediator meets with both parties and helps them to craft and negotiate a fair and agreeable settlement that both feel comfortable with. Some states require mediation prior to litigation, particularly regarding contentious parenting issues. Sometimes it works and you can at least decrease the number of issues where you will need a judge to rule. Sometimes it doesn’t work.

 Mediation is much less expensive than having attorneys involved, and if it is unresolved, you still have the option of going to court to settle while keeping the areas of agreement.  This doesn’t work well if there is a power imbalance in the marriage or one party is not willing to negotiate.

In a collaborative divorce, each party has their own attorney. These attorneys are trained as mediators and collaborative professionals. That means that they bring all the skills to the collaborative divorce process. They offer legal advice and guide their clients through a settlement process while respecting the clients’ goal to remain amicable. The collaborative divorce professionals and the couple sign an agreement at the beginning of the process that they will not go to court if the couple is unable to settle. In large part, that reinforces the professionals' commitment to the process.

During the process, the collaborative attorneys may recommend a team of other collaborative professionals to help the couple end the marriage amicably and equitably regarding finances, custody, and other issues. The process and the team are tailored to the circumstances of the couple. The advantage is that you have the benefit of your own legal advice, a focus on meeting everyone’s needs without having a winner or loser, it promotes better communication during the process and results in less anger after the divorce, and you can have neutral 3rd parties, like a child custody specialist, that are hired to help make the best decision for all involved. You also have control over the pace of the process and keep an eye on the expenses and they can be resolved more quickly than going through the court system. The disadvantage is that if you cannot reach an agreement, you must start completely from scratch with a new attorney to litigate.

 To figure out the right divorce process for you, start by asking yourself these questions:

• Do I want to divorce amicably? Does my spouse want the same?

• Am I willing to freely provide financial and other information to my spouse and the Collaborative Divorce Team? What about my spouse?

• Am I willing to voluntarily abide by whatever agreements I make? Is my spouse willing to do the same?

• Could my spouse and I use help in developing a peaceful and effective co-parenting relationship after our divorce?

• Could I or my spouse use extra support from a financial professional in my divorce?

• Is it important for me to be able to control the timing of my divorce?

• Do my spouse and I care about our privacy and keeping the details of our divorce out of the public record?

• Do my spouse and I own a family business, have a high net worth, or a complex financial situation?

• Do our children have any special needs that we would like to plan for?

• Am I willing to put aside my need to be “right” or to make my spouse suffer so that I can reach an agreement that meets both of our needs?

There are advantages and disadvantages to each divorce process, and every case is unique. Divorcing a narcissistic or toxic partner will be a more complicated process and require an attorney that knows how to deal with difficult personalities and how to advise you about what to hold strong on and what to give.  A narcissist must win, and there will be things that you will sacrifice to get what is important to you.  You also will likely not have a friendly relationship afterwards regardless of what you are willing to compromise on to make them happy.  There is no conscious uncoupling with a narcissist.

Hiring a divorce attorney

You might begin by asking friends and family for referrals. Many people want to keep their divorce private, so if that’s the case, consider asking the professionals in your life for referrals, your financial advisor, your accountant, your therapist, etc.   

Interview several different attorneys to get a feel for what style and personality will work best for you.  There are a lot of attorneys that are known for being aggressive bulldogs. This isn’t right for everyone.  An aggressive attorney may ring up massive billing hours, fight over the things that don’t matter most to you and have tactics that cause acrimony rather than promote resolution.  On the other hand, if your attorney is too collaborative and your spouse hires an aggressive bulldog, you are probably not going to get the best settlement.

Decide what kind of divorce you want to have before you hire your attorney.  If you and your spouse are on friendly enough terms to have a conversation to feel out about how cooperative each of you is willing to be, you will probably be able to save yourselves a lot of your nest egg rather than giving it to attorneys. When two people battle it out through attorneys, the biggest winner is the attorney’s pocketbook.

What to do while you are preparing for or going through the legal process?

Gather financial documents and anything that you might need to help the process move along.  This would include:

• Make an inventory of your belongings and a rough idea of the value.

• Get rid of anything in the house that neither of you wants to keep.

• Have a conversation with your ex about when to share the divorce news, with whom, and how you will do that.

• Hire a divorce coach.  Having a coach to shepherd you through the challenging emotional aspects of the process is life changing. A divorce coach can help you build skills to cope with the middle of the night panic, bolster your courage about facing your ex or court, help you understand the process of divorce, learn new communication skills to help you move through the negotiation process and future decision making around your children with your ex. A good coach has mental health training and experience with the divorce process.

• Take a divorce e-course.  Holly’s course, Stagger, Stumble and Stand, is immediate help for those needing resources that don’t have the time or finances for individual coaching or therapy.  It includes tools to help improve your sleep, coping with the emotional roller coaster of divorce, and to help you establish better boundaries and communication with your ex. 

The different ways to get divorced can feel very confusing, but remember that the more you know, the more empowered you will be to make the best decisions for you. Going through a divorce is a time of emotional upheaval for most people.  Having a solid team of divorce professionals can help make the experience so much less stressful. Your team might include a divorce coach, a therapist, a financial advisor, a mortgage lender, or real estate agent.

If you want a complimentary consultation with either of us, we are happy to talk with you.