A divorced friend of mine once asked me “Why is divorce so expensive?
I started to explain that law firms tend to have very high overheads; office space, law libraries, computers, support staff, indemnity insurance etc. The list is endless. But my friend waved his arms and interrupted me. “Because it’s worth it,” he said, with a gleam in his eye.
Not the most tasteful of jokes, although I will confess that we both enjoyed a belly laugh. However, there is an underlying truth to what he said. Divorce is never pleasant, even when it comes as a release from a completely unhappy relationship, But I have to admit it’s expensive, even though we always do our best to keep the cost to our client as low as possible with work done on a fixed or capped fee basis when possible.
There are two things that should be drawn from this; Firstly, if you want good advice and representation, there is inevitably a price to be paid just as there is with any other high quality product or service. That’s not to say that divorce solicitors should be reassuringly expensive, but on the other hand there’s some truth to the adage that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Divorces are now available online and they are very cheap, but they only do the bare minimum and fail to deal with the most complicated issues, usually sorting out a fair division of assets and the issue of maintenance. Use them at your peril.
Secondly, solicitors who expect to be able to justify their fees need to be very conscious that clients will expect a tip-top service and value for money. Divorce is stressful enough without losing confidence in your solicitors because they never return your calls or do the bare minimum.