The truth about how much a divorce will cost you (Review)
The truth about how much a divorce will cost you (Review)
Did you ever wonder how much it may cost to get divorced?
Are you going through a divorce process and searching for answers?
Divorce lawyer costs are a mystery to you?
Don’t waste precious time anymore, we have some answers for you.
In this post, our mission is to provide you data points and market assessment on how much a divorce lawyer will cost you.
At the end of this post, we will also provide you with some great legal options that you can consider to manage the financial consequences of your divorce.
Ready?
Let’s get started.
What are the factors that can affect my divorce lawyer cost?
For many, the day they got married, they did not consider the possibility of getting a divorce. Most of the times, we don’t get married thinking that we will get divorced. However, statistics show today that nearly half of marriages will end in a divorce.
The consequences of divorce can vary from one couple to another.
A separating couple must be able to cope and deal with the emotional and psychological consequences of their divorce, manage and shelter their children from such emotional turmoil but, most importantly, manage the financial consequences resulting from the divorce.
Divorce lawyer costs will vary based on couple’s ability to compromise
Every divorce case is different and for every couple their divorce lawyer cost will also be different. Such costs will vary largely based on the disputed nature of the case as opposed to an amicable divorce settlement.
Divorce lawyer cost in numbers
There are a few different types of costs and fees that you will likely have to pay in a divorce case starting from Court filing costs all the way to your lawyer fees.
Court costs for a joint divorce application
According to the Justice Quebec’s website in 2019, in the province of Quebec, an initial application for divorce will cost $308 plus an additional $103 for the joint divorce application and $10 fee for the federal registration of the divorce application with the Central Registry of Divorce Proceedings. The total is therefore $421.
According to Canadian lawyer Magazine’s 2015 survey, the average divorce lawyer cost in Canada was $1,845 for an amicable divorce, representing the cheapest divorce option.
Divorce lawyer cost for contested divorces
Unlike an amicable divorce option, a contested divorce can be quite expensive for the couple and that’s where the more the couple cannot agree on things, the more they must be ready to dish out for their divorce lawyer fees.
According to Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s 2019 survey, the average Canadian divorce lawyer cost for an uncontested divorce is $600 to $1,000.
A contested divorce can cost $7,500 to $12,000 per spouse!
If the contested divorce case goes all the way to trial, you are looking at spending about $13,000 for a trial of one or two days and about $26,000 for a trial going up to five days!!
Divorce lawyers will typically charge their fees according to an hourly rate that they establish. In Quebec, those rates can go from $184 per hour to $331 per hour.
Besides Court costs and lawyer fees, you can also have to pay bailiff fees.
Bailiffs are the professionals mandated to officially serve legal documents to people and record the time, date and location of the service in the minutes to prove that the person was effectively given delivery of the legal documents.
Their fee structure is a combination of minimum set fees for the mandate that they are given along with any out-of-pocket expenses such as kilometers travelled and so on.
You can assume that for serving legal documents, an average of $100 will be paid to the bailiff as cost of service.
Finally, you have Court expert fees that you may need to pay depending on the specific nature of the case.
Court experts can be for different legal points: property evaluation, business evaluation, psycho-social expert for parenting abilities or psychologists for parenting abilities.
Your Court expert fees can range anywhere from $2,000 to $25,000 depending on the nature of the expertise. If you are doing a business evaluation, you are looking at the higher end of the spectrum whereas for more specific points it may cost you less.
Over the years, we have new legal service offerings that have emerged over the Internet.
There are divorce lawyers out there that can assist you with online divorce packages ranging from $499 to $1,999 depending on their service offering and your case specifics.
Some of these packages may not include the assistance or consultation with a lawyer whereas other online divorce packages will also include some divorce lawyer assistance.
Furthermore, since 2017, notaries are also legally enabled to handle an amicable divorce application for you. The difference between a lawyer and a notary is that the notary will not be able to assist you any further if your ‘amicable’ case becomes contested.
How to mitigate your divorce lawyer cost?
As you can see from the divorce cost numbers we have presented to you, an amicable divorce can be quite inexpensive as opposed to a contested divorce.
One sure way to mitigate your divorce lawyer cost is by keeping an open communication with your spouse, agreeing on the terms of your divorce and working together to settle your case.
This of course sounds much easier than in real life but this is what you need to strive for if your goal is to reduce your divorce lawyer cost.
Your ability to make concessions as a couple during your divorce process will have a direct and immediate impact on the financial consequences resulting from it.
Online divorce packages, an interesting option today!
The practice of law has been pretty much done the same way for decades and even with today’s technological advancements, we have seen the legal industry continue to resist, although no longer able to, to change.
Today, with automation technologies, expert systems and artificial intelligence, technology has been disrupting the legal industry for several years now and today we can already feel the shift in the manner by which legal services are rendered.
Legal technology companies and start-ups are taking the legal industry by the storm and are revolutionizing the legal industry and services.
The combination of automation technologies and artificial intelligence along with an expert lawyer’s human intervention is producing off the chart results benefiting both the legal professionals and most certainly the legal consumers.
Who is FamilyLawyer.Zone
FamilyLawyer.Zone is an innovative legal technology law firm founded upon technology, automation and systems allow us to achieve high quality legal output at a fraction of the cost of your traditional law firm.
Our mission is to disrupt the legal industry where inefficient practices and time-consuming operations result in expensive and high cost legal services combined with significant delays and turnaround times for the delivery of the legal documents or mandate.
To this end, we have developed an online interview-guided divorce platform where you can, at any time, complete the divorce interview from the comfort of your home.
Based on your answers, our lawyers will validate the divorce documents produced by our online divorce platform to ensure highest level of quality and accuracy based on your answers and we will then deliver them to you.
In this manner, you take advantage of the time saving benefits of our automation platform along with the experience of our divorce lawyers who validate each of your divorce documents.
What’s more, we offer you the online amicable divorce package with top tier quality at a price point that is significantly more advantageous than paying top dollars for a divorce lawyer.
We also bring to you free divorce law and family law content and material for your consumption through our website. Feel free to take advantage of it all.
In addition to the online divorce packages, we are a full-service law firm able to represent you in any type of divorce case before the court should there be dispute or litigation.
Our full-service practice can handle simple to complex divorce and family law matters relating to division of assets, child custody, child support, compensatory allowance, spousal support, family residence ranging from the average divorce case to high net-worth individuals.
If you’d like to read more about our online service packages and offerings, go to familylawyer.zone or feel free to e-mail us at info@familylawyer.zone. Contact us at any time!
It will be our pleasure to assist you with your divorce and family law legal needs.
