If there’s one way to describe a divorce case, it could be called a financial tornado. It will rip through savings and careful planning like nothing else will, especially because finances are often something couples plan together. And on top of that, running two households tends to be more expensive, making it harder to bounce back after you pay all the lawyer and court fees.
One way to combat these costs is to invest in a legal protection plan. When you’re a paying member with a legal benefits plan, you can receive the help of an attorney that is an expert in that area of law, and the legal fees will be paid for by the legal services organization. Basically, it’s a type of legal insurance that can help you defray costs in the future.
It’s easy to assume you’ll never need a lawyer’s assistance in the future. Then again, how many people have thought that, only to find themselves hit with months or years of legal bills unexpectedly? You may need assistance for everything from divorce, to DUI (over 1.4 million people are arrested for this each year), to fraud (4.8 million Americans are scammed by fraudulent weight loss products every year) to medical malpractice (medical errors kill an estimated 200,000 patients annually). In fact, some couples end up getting a divorce because of the burden of legal fees from other cases.
So how much will a divorce cost, exactly? NOLO indicates that on average, the total cost for consumers to divorce is $15,500, with $12,800 of that being the cost of attorney fees. Respondents say that, as can be expected, the more issues they had going to trial, the higher the cost of legal assistance. If the court needs to resolve issues of child custody (23 percent of divorcing couples have children), child support, or the division of property, for example, the price of divorce can continue to go up.
No one likes to imagine legal issues in their future. By not investing in legal assistance now, though, you may find yourself spending all your savings if something were to happen. Invest now so that if bad things happen, you’re not left with the bill.