[quote=temeculaguy]The best advice you can give is to avoid lawyers altogether. If he can talk to her before she gets one, and they are on decent speaking terms, they can work this out using the same attorney, a paralegal or by themselves like Dataagent reccomended. It all depends how mad they are and if they want to go to war or not.
I never saw the inside of a courtroom, my legal fees were under a grand and we went to the same attorney at the same time. We had property, investments, pensions, kids, debts and all the other complications, indluding a marriage over ten years long. It could have been a 50k fight in court and in the end, the same result. The courts have formulas, almost like turbo tax, you enter the facts and the result is the usually the same, you just save time and money.
7 years later, all is still well, kids are grown, never had much of fight and we still maintain a special joint checking account to pay for all kid expenses (sports, pictures, field trips, etc.) and their college savings is a joint account. I realize I hit the divorce jackpot and my ex is a reasonable and fiscally responsible woman, but it takes two to tango, and most couples (divorced or married) usually have things in common like this, even when divorced. Advise him to everything he can from making this a drawn out fight or trying to exact revenge.
In retrospect, neither of us felt like we were screwed over, in fact we both feel we did better by avoiding the cost an the stress that court creates. Other than that, I got nothing.[/quote]
GREAT advice, TG.
FWIW, my parents’ divorce proceedings lasted for about five years. Needless to say, they were six figures deep after going through multiple, multiple attorneys, forensic accountants, etc. It was heinous. At the end of it all, they both felt royally screwed, and never really recovered fully from it, financially or emotionally.
Svelte, tell you friends NOT to do what my parents did. Tell them to take TG’s advice. They still have kids to raise, and there is nothing worse than having your kids sit in the middle of a protracted, bitter, expensive divorce.
Hope they are able to work things out in their marriage; but if not, I hope they can come to an amicable agreement and live happily divorced. Some of our divorced friends all still hang out together with the new husbands & wives, and new kids, friends, etc. The new kids from the new marriages are the best of friends and share half-siblings. It is SO much better than having an ugly divorce.
