The Truth about Divorce Costs
Divorce is a terrifying unknown for many people, let alone the added financial strain of the separation process. One of the most common questions we are asked is: “What is this going to cost me?”
Why is it so difficult to find a consistent answer to this question? In individual cases, it’s because we attorneys are engrained never to give financial guarantees, and good attorneys will not want to create false financial expectations for their clients.
In general, there are a number of variables that can greatly sway the data collection. Every case is unique, and there are certain variables that cost more than others. Things like financial disclosures and discovery compared to a half day or full day mediation session; compared to a contested hearing or uncontested hearing; cases that require depositions be taken, business valuations and competing parenting experts; the level of collaboration that the parties and their attorneys are able to employ; etc. A case may start one way and then quickly escalate in a different direction. It’s very difficult to predict how an individual case will go at the outset.
At Conscious Family, what we can say from our decades combined experience as family lawyers, is that the price estimates available online (attained through quick google searches) are very low, perhaps in an attempt to bring in business. Clients often come to us with figures in their head about what they believe an appropriate estimate should be for a contested divorce or collaborative mediation. People hear and believe the average divorce cost in Colorado is $4,000 to $12,000. Maybe they even hear closer to $15,000. Those estimates may be partially accurate if they are accounting the average cost per individual, with no complex issues. But the harsh reality is that for a majority of cases, the costs are much higher.
It’s always important to remember that conflict has a cost. And in a contested divorce, it can only take one person to be the driving force of that conflict. It could be the opposing party, the opposing party’s attorney, or both.
The average cost of a contested Colorado divorce starts with that initial retainer: anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000. Many clients initially believe that this is likely to encapsulate the total approximate cost. Litigation attorneys are often prone to allow that misconception to persist through silence. But, in fact, the initial retainer in a litigated divorce is almost always nothing more than an initial down payment. It is an account that can quickly snowball, depending on the conflict level of your matter, requiring constant replenishment, additional fees and costs for going to trial, and creating a siphoning system that can be very difficult to escape. To stop funding it, means your legal support stops. To stop funding it, means the other side may now have a legal advantage. To stop funding it, means that it’s going to be even more expensive to have another law firm take over. Now, here you are at the end of your journey, and what started off as $2,500 ended up being $25,000. What started off at $10,000, is now still going at $50,000.
Based on our market research and our internal data regarding our own clients’ expense of ligation, the average cost of a streamlined divorce with each side having legal representation, with few disputes, is approximately $10,000 per person, for a total of at least $20,000 for the couple. Add in arguments related to income earning potential or a business valuation, the average goes up to $15,000 per person for a total of at least $30,000 per couple. Some of the more highly contested divorces, where competing experts are involved, multiple rounds of financial disclosures, and parenting issues our attorneys have been involved in, result in costs of at least $35,000 to $50,000 per person, for a combined expense of $70,000 to $100,000 for the couple. The most highly contested divorces can blow past the six figure mark: we have known of cases that come in at half a million in legal fees and more.
Once spent on litigation, these monies and resources are no longer available to the parties and their children. These resources have potentially been wasted in pursuit of a litigated path.
When you compare the above figures to cases completed under the Conscious Family mediated model, you start to see a drastic difference.
First, in contested/litigated divorces, each spouse usually hires competing experts. And further, experts in a litigation context are required to engage in a detailed and costly investigative process, because they are faced with the prospect of cross examination by an opposing lawyer if the case goes to trial (or a deposition under oath even if it never goes to trial). Mediation, on the other hand, can still involve highly contested issues (requiring experts, for example, to aid in understanding and valuing assets), but the couple is in it together. Mediating spouses not only don’t necessarily have to pay for two lawyers, but they may also only need to pay a single neutral expert for each issue requiring consultation. Neutral experts in a collaborative divorce only do the amount of investigation necessary for the couple to feel comfortable that they have enough information to reach an agreement on the issue under investigation. The couple gets to control the amount of work necessary, and therefore, the costs.
A streamlined, mediated divorce process with few disputes averages around $5,000 shared by the couple, together. A mediation process where more complicated issues like negotiating potential income or a business value averages around $10,000, per couple. A highly contentious or complex mediation with financial experts runs approximately $25,000 for the couple. Here, the monies and resources are collectively maximized for the parties. Clients find that when they share in the stake of the outcome and are responsible for the decisions and agreements being made, they feel more fulfilled and satisfied with the efforts spent.
The attorneys working a litigated model are not necessarily billing unethically. It’s important to remember that attorneys are expensive. But law firms, especially when serving families, need to evolve. There is still a strong, old paradigm mindset of unaffordable hourly rates, billing quotas, and squeezing clients for every penny, atop a fundamental reality that conflict is profit.
At Conscious Family, we have a very different mindset. We believe you, as the client, should always feel that you are in the driver’s seat of your case; that you have an attorney/mediator with no incentive to drive up the conflict. An attorney/mediator who is supporting you and shares the common goal of maximizing your family’s resources. We believe that our business will thrive–and we will sleep better at night–if we consistently commit to keeping our client’s level of conflict, and their legal costs, at a minimum in all cases… as opposed to employing a short term (and heartless) strategy of trying to milk every dollar out of every case. In sum, we refuse to try and profit off of our clients’ misery.
After all our years of operating in the litigation arena, and within a system built on adversarial positions, we have chosen to strive to change the way people are approaching divorce, separation, and other family transitions, through our mediated model: a model which minimizes conflict, minimizes costs, and sets your family up for the best future possible after divorce. That is our commitment to the community we have the privilege of serving.
