Melanie K. Morgan Divorce Law Blog on Lawyers.com

The first question most potential clients ask me is, "How much will this cost?"  This is a sensible question, and one I don't mind trying to answer.  I can tell them certain things - how much I charge for an initial consultation, my minimum deposit, my hourly rate.  I can tell them how much the filing fee is for a divorce petition in Collin County.  I can quote them statistics, such as, "The average divorce in Texas costs $18,000." (I have no idea if that number is correct, but I didn't make it up;  I found it here: http://www.divorcenet.com/Members/lgiles.) 

But I always have to say, I don't know how much your divorce will cost.  That's because I can't predict what the other side is going to do.  Maybe your soon-to-be-ex-spouse wants to take a scorched-earth tack, spend the entire community estate on attorneys' fees, and leave you with nothing to divide.  Or maybe his or her attorney is one of those who just makes everything more difficult, and therefore more expensive.  In those cases, the fees add up very quickly.

But I can tell you what motivates people to behave in a way that makes the divorce process more expensive, damaging, and painful:  fear.  Fear of not having enough money to live on.  Fear of not seeing the children again.  Fear of being humiliated.  In my experience, when people act unreasonably, or do things that are against their own self-interest, it's because they are afraid.

I believe attorneys can do much to ameliorate this fear.  The way we conduct ourselves, and the advice we give our clients, can make the difference in how the other spouse reacts.  For example, don't just surprise him with service by a process server.  Give him a copy of the petition, and send along a waiver of service of process.  Cheaper, and less threatening.  When my clients ask me, "Can I open my own bank account?  Do I still have to have my paycheck direct-deposited to the joint account?"  I say, Don't be a jerk about it.  Let your spouse know what you plan to do.  You can take steps to protect your own interests without unduly damaging what trust there may be between divorcing spouses.

Many attorneys seem to think that they didn't cause the conflict between the couples, and that there's nothing they can do to resolve it.  I believe that we attorneys can change the course of a divorce, for better or for worse.  We can choose the path that exacerbates fear and heightens conflict, thus escalating costs - or we can choose methods that avoid drama and conflict, and make divorce easier, quicker, and less expensive.