Divorce Decision Sliding Scale

Rather than looking at resolving your divorce issues through either adversarial litigation or an alternative to it, consider your options in terms of a sliding scale of different ways you and your spouse can make the decisions you need to make in order to get divorced.

As you can see, you retain the most control and spend the least amount of money if you and your spouse do your own divorce from start to finish. At the other extreme, where you have the least control and spend the most amount money, is adversarial litigation. In between there are several options.

Unless you and your spouse feel completely comfortable with your ability to negotiate everything yourselves and do all of your own paperwork for the divorce, you will probably want some professional help. Guided Do It Yourself, mediation or collaboration is the next-best option on the sliding scale. It provides the specific help you need while keeping costs down and letting you stay in control of what happens.