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How Can I Keep My Divorce Costs Down?

Kristiana Butler | January 13, 2022

How can I keep my divorce costs down?

My name is Kristiana Butler and I’m an attorney in the Austin office of Goranson Bain Ausley. One of the top questions I get from clients is: how do I keep my costs down? In this video, I’m going to talk about five things you can do to have a cost-effective divorce.

Keep a running draft of an email to send their lawyer.

It’s very easy to send multiple emails in the moment when you have a question. Those emails can add up and be expensive. The best thing to do is keep a draft running and add questions throughout the week. If it’s important and time-sensitive, please do not hesitate to reach out call your lawyer or email your lawyer. We want to hear from you and know what’s going on in your case. But the most cost-effective way to do it is to try and draft one email or maybe two a week unless there’s an emergency. Be intentional with your emails. Is this an email that needs to be sent now, or is this a thought that could be saved and added to other thoughts later in the week?

Quickly respond to requests for information from your lawyer or paralegal.

During the divorce process, you will receive many requests for information. It can often feel overwhelming and some clients have a tendency to put it off and not respond. We strongly encourage you to quickly respond to any requests for information from your legal team. Time spent on your case requesting information increases costs unnecessarily. We strongly recommend that you call us if you have any problems gathering information and make sure you do so early on in the process during the divorce process. Even small decisions can have big impacts on your case, before you make any major purchases, relocate, or change your child’s school, please talk to your lawyer. Many of those activities are actually prohibited by the order that goes into place once you file for divorce.

Don’t send inflammatory text to your soon to be ex.

Many clients are shocked to learn that the text they exchanged with their soon-to-be-ex can actually be used against them in court, so anytime you’re about to hit the send button, I encourage you to stop and consider what I want to explain to a judge. If not, don’t send it. This may sound like easy advice. But in the heat of the moment, it can be really hard. When emotions are high, this can be a difficult thing to do. My advice is to wait until the next day before you send a text response. And if it’s really challenging, you can send an email to your lawyer and ask for advice about how to handle it.

Hire a therapist.

Divorce is financially and emotionally challenging; I tell clients it’s like a marathon. My advice to almost all clients is to find a therapist you trust, a good therapist can help in any divorce. Adding a therapist to your divorce team can help keep you focused, manage emotions and get a better outcome now and in the future. At Goranson Bain Ausley, we want to work with you as a team through this divorce process. We want to help you keep costs down and manage the divorce process in a way that works for you.

For more information on how you can keep divorce costs down, please contact Kristiana Butler at 512-454-8791