Its pretty easy and simple to get married. You show up to Town Hall, fill out some paperwork for a marriage license, find a clergy member or judge to perform the ceremony and voila! You guys are married.

However, its a lot harder to get divorced. Those sleezy lawyer ads you see on your commute to work for $299 divorces? Those are only for uncontested divorces, which I will get to in a second.

There are 2 types of divorces, contested and uncontested. Uncontested divorces are where there are no disputes to resolve, usually when custody isn’t being fought over, and there are no assets to divide. The couple agrees on all of the issues and they want to just end the marriage the simplest and fastest way possible. This is literally just a matter of some paperwork, which any attorney or divorce processing center can file on your behalf. For those interested, a lot of town clerks have the papers you need to file your own uncontested divorce available for you to use for free. However, if you use an attorney, the average cost is $4100 for an uncontested divorce. (https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/ctp/cost-of-divorce.html)

Contested Divorces, are where the bread and butter comes for those divorce lawyers. This is what pays for their flashy cars, their vacations, their second or third homes. This is part of the $12.1 billion divorce and family court attorneys industry. And this is where it will cost you and your soon to be ex spouse, respectively tens of thousands of dollars.

According to a study done by legal website Nolo, the average cost of a divorce is $10,600 per person for those who used an attorney to settle all the issues via negotiations. It jumps to $20,400 for those who go to trial for one issue, and $23, 300 per person for those who go to trial for more than one issue. And this is just the national average, when you start calculating in the Tri-State area, the costs skyrocket exponentially. A legal retainer ranges from $7,500-$15,000 for a decent to good divorce attorney, who usually charges between $350/$600 per hour. When you do the math, that only means 20-30 hours of work before you need to start paying more legal bills, and most charge around 18% interest for any monies not paid in full by month’s closing.

If you end up going to trial, a trial retainer is around $25,000-$50,000 in the Tri-State area, which can often not even last you through the trial. Most attorneys will tell you that a trial will take around $100,000 when all the trial prep, expert witnesses (if necessary), forensics, and all other matters are done. That is per person, so you can imagine how expensive divorce can be for many people.

Of course, the final cost is the emotional cost on all parties from the litigation. There is even a syndrome, called Legal Abuse Syndrome, which was discovered in 1995 by Dr. Karin Huffer, which shares many of the symptoms of PTSD. This syndrome comes about from people who are seemingly stuck in the court system, and faced with it being abused to either prevent them from seeing their children or moving on with their lives.(http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/karinhuffer_box.htm)

However, Mediation is a far more financially prudent venture. While Nolo does state that the national average is $3,000-$8,000 for a divorce mediation, this is the total cost that is usually split between both parties. You can add court filing fees and some other negligible associated expenses, but the point is, its much better for your financial and emotional health to engage in mediation as a method of getting divorced.

It is also way better for your credit score as well! According to a study, 42% of men and 54% of women said their credit score declined after divorce (https://www.cnbc.com/select/does-divorce-affect-credit-score/). This is usually because of missed payments or other financial hardship as a result of paying for the legal fees for the divorce. However, there are also the factors that can impact your career, especially with a long drawn out divorce it can be a tremendous emotional burden and you will also have to miss a lot of work to attend court etc.

One final note on the cost of a divorce via litigation – it can completely destroy your working relationship with your ex spouse. While you already might not have the best relationship with your spouse (hence you are getting divorced), still there is at least a possibility that the two of you can work together and co-parent together with mutual respect in order to give the children the best possibility of having a “normal” life. This goes out the window once you go through a trial, where every action is under a microscope and every flaw that you have will be brought out and used against you in court. This pretty much results in a “Scorched Earth” policy from your spouse after you guys finally do settle, and it will take time and effort to repair the relationship enough so you can co-parent effectively again. And the cost on the children (especially with older kids) is also extremely dramatic.

So with all of these potential costs on the line, why not make the smartest divorce decision and try to get divorced TheSmartestDivorce way? Currently offering a free initial consultation for all new clients.