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[quote=Anonymous]As a general rule: the more "amicable" the divorce, the less expensive.  If you can negotiate most of the agreement yourself and use your lawyers just to review the agreement, you'll spend the least.  If you have an "aggressive" lawyer who markets themselves on fighting for you...well, you're going to spend a lot of money.  You may or may not get more than if you'd just negotiated with each other on most of the terms.

FWIW: When I got divorced, my wife had hired one of those "aggressive" attorneys.  She ended up agreeing to mediation, and we negotiated most of the divorce on our own (we didn't have kids, which made that easier).  We also hired a mediator who specialized in divorces and could recommend collaborative lawyers.  I got one of those collaborative lawyers and just ran the draft of the settlement agreement by him.  He had some really good feedback.  My ex's attorney kept trying to get me to do everything through her and was generally unhelpful and combative.  I'm sure my ex spent a lot more on her attorney than I did.  I'm not sure she got more out of the settlement because of that.

The mediator was great, though.  She kept things focused, moved us toward a resolution, and was overall much more inexpensive than it would have been to have our lawyers fight things out.

So I guess my advice is to beware of "aggressive" lawyers unless you're really, really sure you need one.  Many times, they'll just cost you more money without getting you that much value in return.[/quote]

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