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What Most Divorcing Couples Don’t Understand About Hiring An Attorney Vs. Pre-Suit Divorce Mediation
|When you hire an attorney to represent you in your divorce case you pay the attorney/litigator a retainer, which is just like a deposit. It could be $2,500, $5,000, $10,000 or more. Once the retainer is paid, the attorney works off the retainer at whatever their hourly rate is. Once the retainer is exhausted, the attorney then wants an additional retainer before they will continue to represent you. Most experienced family law attorneys bill at north of $400 per hour. So, if you pay an attorney a $3,000 retainer and they are billing you at $400 per hour, you are going to get about 7 ½ hours of work out of the attorney before they want another retainer. Just the initial paperwork to file a contested case can take over 3 hours to prepare. Once the case is filed and your spouse is formally served, you enter into the discovery phase of the case. This phase can take months and many hours to complete, further cutting into your first, second or third retainer retainer/deposit. Once formal discovery is finished, then you will be court ordered to mediation. So, if you are going to mediation anyway, why not try mediation initially, before you file suit. If you settle, you’ve saved yourself a good bit of money and a lot of time. If you don’t settle, you can always
hire attorneys to litigate your case. For more information about mediation go to my website
www.bethreineke.com.
