What to do about a lawyer?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-15-2004
What to do about a lawyer?
1
Fri, 05-06-2005 - 5:53pm
HI,
My husband wants to go through a divorce..we have been seperated for 3 months. He is freaking out about money all the time and doesn't want to spend money to get a divorce. That is his excuse why he won't file..to expensive. Anyways, he wants to discuss things before we go to a lawyer so we don't have to spend too much money. He also suggested seeing one lawyer. Is that wise? Don't you think we should both get our own. I don't know anything about divorce. I really don't even want a divorce, but he is insistant that we can never work out our issues. We don't have much assets. We own a house( no equity), just took out a a second mortgage (very stupid now),only thing is personal possessions (furniture etc). We do have to talk about child custody etc. But beyond that we really don't have too much between us. Any suggestions?
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2005
Fri, 05-06-2005 - 6:57pm

Each state is different, but I will tell you what H and I are doing in NC.

We each have our own atty. It is cheaper if we can work out as much of the settlement on our own and then just have the attys draw it up for us to sign. I don't know that we will get to that point 100%, but the less the attys have to go back and forth, the cheaper (because they spend less of their time on your case).

You can also look into mediation which is where you have a third party help you to get to this point. I belive this is a bit cheaper.

In any case, I would seriously consider getting your own atty. Just because you have one, doesn't mean your H has to have one (although, this wouldn't be wise for him).

If you don't have a lot of assets and you can come to an agreement on the custody and support issues, the final atty paperwork shouldn't cost much, but I would still go an talk with an atty to get an idea as to your rights and what should expect.

Good luck!