How Much Does It Cost?

 

 

Most of my family law practice is done on an hourly billing, and is contested family law cases. The cost of a divorce (or any other family law case), is driven by how much you and the other side fight. To some degree you can control how much you fight; you can’t control how much the other side wants to fight.
I bill at $250 an hour, plus costs. But I find it’s useful to know how much a divorce – or other case tends to cost to do.
Divorces, parentage cases, and parenting plan modifications usually take about a year, start to finish. In Snohomish County, if you manage it properly, you can be at trial in about six to eight months. In King County, it’s about 11 months. But the costs tend to be:

Month 1: The case gets filed and served. Sometimes – about half the time – we have a fight over temporary orders, sometimes Orders of Protection, and sometimes those orders get revised.  All of that takes place in the first 1-5 weeks or so. The cost for the first month will run from $500-600, if all we are doing is filing the case, serving it, and not fighting in court, to $3,000-5,000 or so. The average cost is about $3000-3500 if we have a fight in court over a temporary parenting plan, etc.

Month 2 to Month 9 (About Two Months Before Trial). This is the discovery phase. Usually nobody goes to court during this phase. But some time and money is spent on discovery and other suspense items. Discovery costs anywhere from $500 to $2,000- 3,000 if there is a real fight about producing documents. In a case where there is little conflict, average fees are between $500 and $1500; in very contested cases (complex divorces, high asset cases, hidden asset cases), it will run $3,000-8,000.

Month 10 (One Month Before Trial). We have to get ready for trial and mediation. I prepare for mediation the same way, with the same exhibits, as I prepare for trial. That gives me the best results at mediation; and it means if we don’t settle the case, we do little new work to get ready for trial. But in both King and Snohomish County, we have to go to mediation before going to trial.  Mediation usually takes place a month before trial. A  professional mediator costs each side between $900 and $1400 or so; mediation usually takes 4-8 hours. The attorney fees for mediation will be between $2500 and $4500 – depending entirely on how much time it takes. Most divorces settle in mediation. But the average cost of mediation, total, is about $5,000.

Month 11 (Trial).Trial is expensive. I figure trial costs – average - $2500 a day, with half a day for prep time, and another half a day for paperwork after trial. The average divorce trial, without children, is a day  to a day and a half; the average trial with custody issues lasts two to five days. So the average cost of trial is between $5,000 and $7500.