Questions To Ask Your Divorce Lawyer

by Sarah Coombs

Before you meet with a divorce lawyer, make sure you have a list of questions ready. The process can be overwhelming and intimidating for many people. It’s important to have a good understanding of what you need to discuss in those initial appointments. Lawyers are expensive, so it’s important to have a good understanding of what you need from those meetings.

How long will this take?

The first thing I recommend people discuss with their divorce lawyer is key dates and timelines. If you’re separating from your partner, there are certain timelines that apply, depending on whether you’re married or a de facto couple.

It’s really important to get a handle on timelines early on in the process of ending a marriage. You can’t apply for divorce until a certain amount of time has passed, and if you’re in a defacto relationship, even more so because you have only a certain amount of time to apply for financial settlement through the courts. It’s important to ask your solicitor about these timelines and when they’ll be up so that you don’t miss any deadlines set down by the Family Law Act.

What is the process?

The process of getting a divorce can be overwhelming. There are a lot of steps to take, even the word “divorce” can be confusing to some people. So what is the process? Do I start with a financial settlement or do I start with divorce?

Some people start with a financial settlement and leave divorce until later, while some people start with divorce and then those timelines start to apply. It’s really important that you understand which parts will go to court, because not all things end up in court. It’s important to talk with your lawyer about different ways of finalizing things, such as mediation, direct negotiation, or filing in court.

Sometimes it’s needed, but it’s really important to understand there are other methods there, other than going to court, because the idea of going to court is actually quite scary to a lot of people. This doesn’t necessarily need to be the case, particularly in most circumstances. Understanding what the process is, how to get the ball rolling, what is needed from you, what is needed from your former partner and what happens if those timelines and processes aren’t followed, is a really good starting step to understanding what your rights are, and walking away from a solicitor, feeling a lot more confident.

What am I entitled to?

Particularly in matters where finances are shared between parties, it’s really important to understand what your legal rights are to a settlement out of the property claim. It may be that walking away each with your own assets is the best solution. It may be there needs to be some sort of adjustment. Entitlements to superannuation as a result of a breakdown of a marriage or defacto relationship, caring for children, what the process is for dealing with what time arrangements are for children– understanding what those rights are, is incredibly important, to know what you’re entitled to.

It’s good to speak to a lawyer about this because the problem with Family Law is that it is such a gray area and tailored to the individual circumstances. Everyone’s got an aunt or uncle or a friend or a cousin who’s been divorced, and this is what they got and you should get the same. No, it’s not how it works. That’s definitely oversimplified. So it’s really important that you speak to someone who is qualified and understands the legal process so that you can move forward with a bit of confidence.

What is the difference between divorce and a financial settlement?

This is really important. I touched on it briefly before, to understand both timelines, process and what you’re entitled to. These are two completely separate legal processes and are somewhat unrelated to one another as well. You can get divorced and not have a financial settlement. You can have a financial settlement and not get divorced, but both of those have impacts on timelines. It’s really important to understand the difference between the two and get a clear understanding in your head about what those are.

For a very brief summary, a divorce is the process of legally ending a marriage. You have a marriage certificate that no longer applies. You are divorced. Whereas a financial settlement is the division of the assets and liabilities of the relationship. They are two completely separate processes.

What are your fees?

Lawyers are expensive, so it’s important to know upfront how much you expect to spend on this process. You can minimize your legal costs by learning about strategies for cost reduction and by moving forward without letting the process take up all of your asset pool. It is very common for parties to nearly spend more money on legal fees than what they are fighting over at the time. It’s important to understand when you’re throwing good money after bad.

With legal fees, we do recommend you try to get some fixed costs. This is something TBA Law like to offer our clients. It’s when we say at the start that our fees are going to be X amount of money. You put that money in trust and then that’s what they’re capped at. There are circumstances where this changes, but this is a very good technique for minimizing bill shock at the end of your matter when you’re dealing with an emotional stress as well. You don’t want to be dealing with a financial stress as well.

So those are my five questions to ask your divorce lawyer.

We do recommend that it’s worth going to see a lawyer, a family lawyer at the start of separation, just so you have a clear understanding of what the process is, what the timelines are, your rights and entitlements, fees and differences between those two processes. A very good first step in any separation is to start there. It doesn’t mean you need to engage a lawyer straight away, but it’s worth being aware of those key factors.

Questions To Ask Your Divorce Lawyer