How much does divorce cost?
The question everyone wants to know around divorce relates to the cost. Specifically, legal costs. Want to learn what lawyers, mediators and arbitrators charge in Canada? Keep reading.
Two different surveys of lawyers share information about what they charge clients for divorce.
Both were published in 2017. From these, I learned that if you and your spouse fight about everything and go to trial, likely each of you will spend more than $54,000 in legal fees. This doesn’t include taxes or the out of pocket costs (photocopying, couriers, court fees) that lawyers charge their clients.
One of these surveys shared that a lawyer billed a client $625,000 in a high conflict dispute. These high bills are part of the reality of fighting in court.
According to a survey by The Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family, if it is a low conflict dispute, each spouse can expect to spend, in money and time:
if mediation is used: $6,345 and 4.8 months
if collaborative law is used: $6,269 and 5.0 months
if arbitration is used: $12,328 and 6.6 months
if litigation (lawyers fighting in court) is used: $12,395 and 10.8 months.
If it is a high conflict dispute, the financial costs range from a low of $25,110 for collaborative law, to a high of $54,390 for litigation (lawyers fighting in court). Likewise, the time increases too. The least amount of time for high conflict divorce ranges from 13.7 months using mediation, to 27.7 months using litigation.
The other survey was conducted on behalf of Canadian Lawyer Magazine. Its data is harder to read, as it looks like a menu of a la carte options. For example, it has an item for a separation agreement, but then lists separate amounts for child support and division of property.
From the vantage point of my education and experience, I read the data and saw that on average a person in Canada who wants to get divorced and spend as little as possible will be charged about $5,000 in legal fees. To arrive at this amount, I added the average amount charged for a separation agreement and to obtain a divorce.
This survey did not share the time it takes to resolve the issues.
That’s it for my snapshot of the surveys. These are the take-aways from this post:
Litigation (fighting in court) takes the longest and is the most expensive.
Mediation and collaborative law – even in high conflict disputes – cost about 50% of litigation, and are resolved in half the time.
In arbitration, the dispute is resolved in half the time it takes to go to trial, yet it costs almost as much as litigation.
POST SCRIPT: Since the results of these surveys were published, many provincial governments in Canada have changed the laws to state that spouses cannot start with litigation. They must participate in mediation, collaborative law, or arbitration first.
The best thing you can do is speak with a mediator (such as me) at the start, even if your spouse likes to fight. Most likely, doing this will save you time, money, and stress.