Agreeing On Personal Assets During a Divorce

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We want a divorce and think we have everything figured out.

If you and your spouse have undertaken the difficult task of splitting up assets and liabilities, making decisions of how your life will look post divorce and verbalized an agreement, I strongly encourage you to schedule a consultation to determine which unbundled services best fit your needs and optimize keeping costs down with the benefits of getting legal advice and protecting yourself from an expensive and ugly court battle further down the road if one of you does not fully understand the terms of the settlement and their implications.

Many people in this situation call in requesting a “one lawyer divorce.” As ethical standards absolutely prohibit a single attorney from representing the interests of opposing parties, what a “one lawyer divorce” really means is that one spouse retains the attorney and the other goes unrepresented. The attorney drafts the documents and guides the retaining party through the legal system, but cannot give legal advice to the other party. This is a cost effective option if both parties have a complete understanding of the settlement and do not need full legal representation.
Many clients who think they have all of their issues figured out and just want to hurry up, file, and finish their divorce. However, upon the beginning of drafting when details must be spelled out, clients often realize they are not in agreement as they thought or that they have not considered crucial details (See link below for a checklist of considerations to get you started and really thinking through the “issues” of your divorce.)
Unless your spouse has specifically agreed to all facets of what you are proposing in the divorce, it is probably more cost effective to look at other options, where the difficult conversations can take place in a safe environment with the help of professionals. This can be even more time saving and cost effective than you might have imagined.