“Jessica” and “Martin” were married with two daughters.  Jessica is a physical therapist working three days a week with an income of about $9000 per month and Martin is self-employed owning two corporations with a salary to him of $7,700 per month.

Jessica filed for divorce in May 2003 and they get a judgment of divorce in November 2004.  The court judgment indicates that they both share custody of the children and make a comparable amount of money so neither one pays the other any child support.

Ten years later Jessica hires a lawyer and asks the Court to change the child custody and child support orders and order Martin to pay her child support and attorney fees.

Jessica tells the court that Martin’s income in his tax returns is less than what he really makes because he reduces his income in his tax returns by depreciating business equipment and he should not be allowed to do that to show less income to avoid child support.  Depreciation measures how much business equipment loses its value every year.

Jessica loses the case in the Superior Court and hires appellate lawyers to appeal the court’s decision who finally say Jessica is right, Martin should not be able to reduce his income available for support by using depreciation of equipment in his tax return.

Well, this took six years of litigation and attorney fees and now she has to go back to the Superior Court and have the Court reassess child support based on the Appellate Court’s decision, which will take more time and more attorney fees.

How much attorney fees did she pay in this process of over six years?

I would estimate that she spent about $5000 per month to $10,000 per month or approximately $500,000.

How much could the equipment reduce in value in a year to justify this expense of spending not only the attorney fees but six years of her life?

How about the cost of the resentment and upsets of litigation on each of them and the children.  How much is her time and his time worth?  You can make money but you cannot get back the time you lost.

How much did Martin have to pay in attorney fees?

Couldn’t they spend that money instead on the children and their education?

Was the difference in child support really what drove this litigation?

Would anyone who was a savvy investor invest in the litigation process?

Litigation is emotionally driven and is not really necessary most of the time.

In a Collaborative process, we get to the root of the emotional issue to free people up to think wisely for themselves.

If it was not about proving the other wrong or if it was not about domination or avoiding domination, Martin and Jessica would have many options that are better than spending six years of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorney fees on the litigation.

In Collaborative, the lawyers’ role is not to fight but rather to come up with options that address both of their needs.

In litigation, the forensic accountants give different views and it becomes the battle of the experts costing sometimes as much as attorney fees.

In the Collaborative process, there is one financial neutral who makes sense of finances and works with the Collaborative attorneys to have sensible options for both Jessica and Martin to consider.

Everything is momentum; if you want to be caught in the vicious cycle of litigation, you may end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove a point.

A momentum of teamwork for the good of everyone is a better lesson for the children to learn.

Questions?  Contact us!