Quote:
Originally Posted by richpuer
this is true, my dad went thru a divorce that spanned over 13 years and had to pay for HER lawyer the whole time...its fucking ridiculous...so yea, in a nutshell, u pay someone to basically screw you over and its the law..WTF kinda justice is that??
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This is the problem lawyers cause. When a lawyer for the woman is paid for by the husband her lawyer has no vested interested in getting it settled quickly. The husband just became the wife's lawyers sugar daddy.
In really if you can do it without lawyers both parties will be much better off. Lawyers have no vested interested other than getting a pay check. They could care less if either parties get what they want, they actually like it when both side can not agree then the lawyer gets more billable hours trying to get some agreement. And when they do agree i seen where they tell their clients they should not agree.
A friend of mine wanted to settle his divorce without lawyers, they were only married 2 or 3 yrs at the time, he had started a business a few years prior to getting married so it was debt ridden still. She quit he job to work for the business. So he told her he would continue paying on her car and insurance and would pay her so much a month until she found her own place and got back on her feet with a job. Well the wife listen to her sister and got lawyer since the sister told her she deserved a lot more.
Well the lawyer ended up dragging it out for almost a yr and in the end the Judge award the wife nothings since the business was in the hole and she was not willing to assume half the debt and because the lawyer racked up billable hours in excess of $10K and the wife was able to work the judge said she deserved nothings since he did not bring anything to the marriage and quit her job on her own.
My friend felt bad for her and told her lawyer in court he was an idiot and cost his wife more than the $10k he billed him. He suggested to the lawyer that he refund his wife the $10k since he failed to do his job. He then turned around and told the court he would still make her car payments and insurance until it was paid off. My friend represented himself since he did not have enough money to pay for her lawyer and one for him.
The interesting part of this, her lawyer wanted the court to award her half the business and she deserved some % of its income for a period of time since she worked there for 2 yrs without pay. Well the judge said fine but she had to assume half of the $150K in debt the business had since the business was worthless otherwise. The assets were not worth more than what was owned at that point and billable receipts were barely cover the debt service.
My friend also called the sister and told her she was also an idiot and her stupid advise of getting a lawyer because my friend was trying to rip her off caused his wife to get less than than what he was willing to give her upfront.
To the op, if both of you can be reasonable and can decide on what is fair you do not need lawyers. As people pointed out most States have guideline on how things should be split, if you follow those and the court see no real issue you can simple be done with it and each can go their own way.