Advantages of an Uncontested Divorce

The advantages of an uncontested divorce are significant.

1. Saves Legal Fees: The contested legal process is laborious. Attorney are expensive because they have to spend so much time dealing with the morass of litigation - intensive, thoughtful client communications, communications with opposing counsel, court appearances, detailed, laborious written discovery requests and responses, depositions, motions, trial preparation and presentation. A hard fought divorce running the full gambit will consume 100 to 200 hours of each attorney’s time – 200 to 400 collective hours - depending on the case. The cost of this comes from the marital estate or from marital debt that will be allocated at the final trial or from family resources that could be invested otherwise.

2. Saves Client Time: The client is immersed in this taxing process as well. The client will be communicating with the lawyer, reviewing emails, reviewing documents, participating in discovery – answering questions, producing documents – attending depositions and hearings and testifying.

3. Prevents Frustration and Stress: The legal process is bureaucratic. Dockets are backlogged. Depending on your county, even with your attorney pushing the case, you may not appear on a final trial calendar for a year or longer from the time you file. And the end result may not be what you had hoped. No trial lawyer can guarantee what the judge or jury is ultimately going to do. We can offer predictions only. Going to court and dealing with the process is stressful and unpleasant.

4. Prevents Further Damage to Your Relationship: If you have children, your spouse, who you may not like, or may even hate right now, is your life partner as far as co-parenting your children. Putting him or her through litigation – and embarrassing him or her at hearings and at trial – will only build animosity. Ideally, you and your ex spouse will have an amicable working relationship after the divorce so you can co-parent constructively. An uncontested resolution may help this.

5. Potential Benefits to Children: Children do not like to see their parents fighting, whether married or divorced. They can sense stress. They want to see their parents behave kindly toward each other. An uncontested divorce may help put an end to the stress make moves things forward.