How Much Will My Divorce Costs and How Long?

A divorce can be a quite expensive process. Just how expensive depends on a number of factors, such as the issues involved, like child custody and the composition, value and complexity of the marital assets.

The actions taken by the other lawyer can have an impact on the expense as well as your spouse’s attitude and approach to the process. Often, the parties are able to resolve some, if not all of the issues, prior to trial, which can limit the time and expense needed for trial preparation.

Of course, the best option for avoiding time and expense in a divorce case is for the parties to cooperate and reach an agreement they both can live with. Even if it is not perfect, an agreement you reach with your spouse is often preferable to leaving the division of your life up to a judge. Even though the judges in North Alabama  do an outstanding job, they still have a very limited window of time during a trial to arrive at decisions that will affect the rest of your life, and they will never be able to understand your particular situation and goals as well as you do.

How Long Does A Divorce Take?

As for how long a divorce will take, that also depends on a number of factors such as your particular judge’s caseload, the other divorce cases ahead of yours, and conflicts that we or the other lawyer may have with your case setting. As a general rule of thumb you can expect your case to take at least six months for your case to be set for trial, but in some instances it can take over a year for a case to actually get to trial.

If you are able to reach an agreement on the front end, however, we can typically complete the necessary paperwork quickly and after the Judge signs off on your divorce decree, it becomes final in 30 days. Its also important to remember that even if you don’t reach an agreement at the start of the divorce, you can still do so at any time during the process, even if a contested divorce proceeding is already underway.