LAWYER’S FEES: I have a very intense divorce and custody matter going on where my husband is being very difficult. I went to a lawyer and he said if it goes to court it will cost me $13,000 a day. That seems rather a lot of money. Can he charge me so much?
That seems to be well above the normal fee for a lawyer doing procedural divorce/access/custody litigation. But there is ‘freedom of contract’ – you can always obtain the services of another other good, competent divorce lawyer much cheaper than that, say, for some $2,000 to $3,000 per day in court. Property settlement is very important, but a lawyer can negotiate that from his office using precedents for guidance. Experience shows that what usually gives problems is where there is a dispute about access to the children of the family. Divorce/access/custody litigants would save a great deal of money if they could accept precedents where the circumstances were similar to theirs. In other words, what I very strongly suggest – to save thousands of dollars – is to go to court with ‘consent orders’ – where there will be agreement on property, custody, access before going to court
