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The only ones that make out in a divorce are the lawyers. You’ve heard this over and over again. You assume it to be true but don’t really know why. After all, you know your lawyer’s rate. They provide detailed billing of everything. They only work on the things you and the court say they should. Then if there is so much control on them, how can things get so expensive?

The simple answer is that it relies on how cooperative you and your soon to be ex are with each other.

You see the court doesn’t want to have to make any decisions for you. Remember that the court is only seeing you for 10 minutes at a time and you are probably 1 out of a hundred couples that the court will be dealing with that day.

They expect that you, your ex and the lawyers will work out all the details and bring to the court an agreed upon settlement for the court to sign off on and then they are done and you two go on your merry way.

When you bring a topic of impasse to the court, the court will guide the lawyers as to what they need to do to either close the issue or what it is that the court wants from the lawyers in order to help them make a decision.

That’s the beginning of the cash cow.

Let’s run through this seemingly simple scenario.

1. You pay for your lawyers time in court today. Though you only spent 10 minutes in court yourself, the lawyers probably spent 10 or 15 minutes in there with the Judge prior to you getting called into the court room. This is a whole other topic about the court. The lawyers do all the work before you get into court. All you are really there for is to swear in and listen to what the Judge has decided to do regarding what the lawyers told them.

2. Not only did the lawyers spend time in court today they probably got to the courthouse and had to wait around for 30 minutes before getting called in. They also had to travel to the court. Even if they walked from an office located a block away, there was time involved.

3. The lawyers also had to spend time leading up to today. You know … drafting up letters or responding to your phone calls and contacting each other.

4. When they leave the office today, you’ll wind up talking with them and taking up their time. They’ll draft up other paperwork and send them back and forth between lawyers and then may forward items over to the court as well in preparation for your next court date.

5. You yourself can be added to the cost of today as you may have had o take time off from work and you may have had additional expenses to get there (i.e. tolls, parking, gas).

Now this is just for one topic that you two can’t seem to settle but lets add things up quickly to get an idea of what today cost and we’ll stick solely with what the lawyer costs could be.

Lawyer time:

.50 hrs - Client conversation
.10 hrs - Client phone call
.15 hrs - Opposing council phone call
.10 hrs - Read client provided documentation
.15 hrs - Drafting letter to council
.10 hrs - Reading council response
.10 hrs - Responding to council’s letter
.10 hrs - Phone call with council
.10 hrs - Deliver to court final documents
.05 hrs - Leave message to client regarding new court date
.10 hrs - Return client phone call
1.0 hrs - Court Appearance
.50 hrs - Travel Time to/from
.15 hrs - Opposing council phone call
.10 hrs - Reading client provided documentation
.15 hrs - Drafting letter to council
.10 hrs - Reading council response
.10 hrs - Responding to council’s letter
.10 hrs - Phone call with council
.10 hrs - Deliver to court final documents

You get the idea so let’s do the quick math. For your 10 minutes in court on a single day that comes out to 3.85 hours.

So at $250 per hour for the lawyer, the final cost of today’s issue was $962.50.

Didn’t expect that did you? You knew the lawyer cost $250 per hour but I bet you weren’t prepared for how quickly the minutes add up for them because of all the itemizations.

Remember now that you are scheduled to go back to court for the same issue in a few weeks. That right there is going to cost you at the very least another hour of lawyer time plus travel and you must realize by now that there will more itemizations added as well.

What if you are now working on the second issue or third or fourth, etc. What if financial lawyers need to get involved or psychologists, or a deposition is needed. It just keeps adding up and adding up and that’s if you and your ex are only butting heads on little issues. Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money.

An even bigger financial problem can come from delays caused by a battling spouse. There are many tricks for manipulating the court and causing delay after delay. Many times this is part of the game plan for lawyers and the court as they figure that you’ll probably settle things quicker once you see how easy it is to drag things out.

Pick your battles carefully when you can because you don’t want to be handing out your money for nothing in return. After almost 4 years as of this writing, I can assure you that it really has been for nothing. I am seemingly no closer to the end than the day I started. I just make believe it is.