Rant: Attorney fees award

You are outgunned, get a forensic accountant to dig deeper.

I think reasonable attorney fees should come out of the marital pool. If the one side has to pay for both sides it could result in a vindictive spouse running up attorney fees unnecessarily out of spite. Hopefully her attorney would be too ethical to charge for such frivolous work in most cases.

Quote: FleaStiff

You are outgunned, get a forensic accountant to dig deeper.

That was part of the motion as well. The husband and his attorney argued he is a mere W-2 employee……..BUT, in his motion response, he hired a forensic accountant to set forth his version of the facts……apparently, what's good for the goose...

How do you know his aren't being scrutinized.

Quote: Wizard

I think reasonable attorney fees should come out of the marital pool. If the one side has to pay for both sides it could result in a vindictive spouse running up attorney fees unnecessarily out of spite. Hopefully her attorney would be too ethical to charge for such frivolous work in most cases.

WIZARD…you have to think of all the income as the marital pool, even during the divorce, as the parties are technically still married…the income still coming in must still go to marital bills…if one side is the high income earner, and the incomes of both sides are not considered, one spouse could spend their yearly salary (i.e. $50k) on a divorce while the other side can basically run roughshod with their attorneys, experts, trial consultants, etc.

Quote: EvenBob

How do you know his aren't being scrutinized.

He does not have to submit them in his papers opposing our motion.

What evidence do you have that the husband's legal invoices aren't actually being scrutinized as well? Certainly, if the clerk intends to treat the sides differently, someone should probably tell the judge that she may not be acting impartially with respect to this matter...

Quote: rdw4potus

What evidence do you have that the husband's legal invoices aren't actually being scrutinized as well? Certainly, if the clerk intends to treat the sides differently, someone should probably tell the judge that she may not be acting impartially with respect to this matter...

It is not a requirement of the law that he submit his legal invoices…as he is using his income (which is considered marital income…which the courts sometime forget), he has already paid and the court only scrutinizes the invoices of the side seeking fees (even though there is a LEGAL PRESUMPTION that the spouse be awarded fees unless it is in the interests of justice to not award the fees)…if it comes down to it, my client will sign a consent judgment on proceeds from the house, but that means I have to work the entire case for free then collect when the house is eventually sold

Who was the party to initially file for divorce? That would probably have an impact on my opinion of the matter.

Quote: Mission146

Who was the party to initially file for divorce? That would probably have an impact on my opinion of the matter.

The Husband commenced the divorce

In that event, both parties attorneys should have their invoices scrutinized.

Can't you just formally request that both sets be scrutinized, since the expenses come from the marital pool?

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

Can't you just formally request that both sets be scrutinized, since the expenses come from the marital pool?

Nope - only the party seeking fees has the scrutinized (even in the face of the legal presumption) - in my opinion, many lawyers that serve as assistants to judges are jealous of private attorneys (this particular one mentioned her ivy league education a few times during the meeting) and chomp at the bit to deny fees.
That and a subway token gets you uptown!

Quote: aceofspades

Nope - only the party seeking fees has the scrutinized (even in the face of the legal presumption) - in my opinion, many lawyers that serve as assistants to judges are jealous of private attorneys (this particular one mentioned her ivy league education a few times during the meeting) and chomp at the bit to deny fees.
That and a subway token gets you uptown!

If those are the rules, those are the rules.

As a lawyer, can you not work within the system to change the rules? It sounds like there is a good legal argument that both sets of fees should be scrutinized. It seems that either party should have standing to have any large expenditures that come from the marital pool scrutinized, since they are paying for half of them.

Quote: AxiomOfChoice

If those are the rules, those are the rules.

As a lawyer, can you not work within the system to change the rules? It sounds like there is a good legal argument that both sets of fees should be scrutinized. It seems that either party should have standing to have any large expenditures that come from the marital pool scrutinized, since they are paying for half of them.

It took NY forever and a day to allow no fault divorce - I will do what i can when I write these briefs but, the judges in the matrimonial parts of the court system hate being there and are mostly just biding their time until they get assigned to "real" cases - so, judicial activism is not on their radar

Quote: Mission146

Who was the party to initially file for divorce? That would probably have an impact on my opinion of the matter.

Why?

And maybe I am not reading enough into your question, but if we are married and I sleep with anything moving, and that is the reason you want to be divorced, and you file for divorce, would you or I be the "party to initially file for divorce."

My guess is that you would be the initially filing party. Would that impact your opinion?

There should be a marital asset cap for each attorney. % of net worth, total dollar amount, whatever. If you want to spend more than that, it comes out of your final piece of the pie.

Unless the opposite spouse is found to have hidden assets/income/etc. If she is the lying sack of S-word you knew her to be at the start of the divorce, then the cap would be off and the lawyers make bank.

Quote: Maverick17

Why?

And maybe I am not reading enough into your question, but if we are married and I sleep with anything moving, and that is the reason you want to be divorced, and you file for divorce, would you or I be the "party to initially file for divorce."

My guess is that you would be the initially filing party. Would that impact your opinion?

There should be a marital asset cap for each attorney. % of net worth, total dollar amount, whatever. If you want to spend more than that, it comes out of your final piece of the pie.

Unless the opposite spouse is found to have hidden assets/income/etc. If she is the lying sack of S-word you knew her to be at the start of the divorce, then the cap would be off and the lawyers make bank.

Maverick - excellent suggestion - this would certainly help in keeping costs down. However, would it be a flat percentage for all parties or would there be a sliding scale…? inverse sliding scale…?

Quote: aceofspades

Maverick - excellent suggestion - this would certainly help in keeping costs down. However, would it be a flat percentage for all parties or would there be a sliding scale…? inverse sliding scale…?

I have never been divorced, nor have I been through the interworkings of a divorce that had any real assets or liabilities to dispose of.

I suppose I would start out at a 50/50 split of whatever the percentage of assets are.

I don't have a clue as to what a "typical" fee would be for a "typical" or "atypical" divorce so I will have to make assumptions.

Assume the wife is the bread winner, and dad is a Mr Mom.

I would assume the reason for divorce is not material since it doesn't matter if she sluts it up, or he can't keep his d in his pants. If this were to matter, I would suppose the "guilty" party would deny it if accused, and would also just file for divorce under "no fault" law if "guilty" party just wanted out of the marriage.

In this situation the man would be the one asking for the woman to pay fees currently, correct?

I would propose two options:

1. Flat amount based on a percentage of assets (I would probably discount liabilities, and possibily eliminate them, but definitely not make the % based on net assets). This amount would be set in stone by the courts which have overseen hundreds of thousands of cases, but be non-negotiable. Possibly make it a sliding scale based on the size of assets, up or down as the court would see fit. In any case, it would be written in stone. Then each party gets 50% of that pie.

2. Give the lawyers the opportunity to slug it out in open court. The winners (as decided by a judge) choice would be followed by both parties. ie if one lawyer wants a flat fee of $100 and the opposing lawyer wants the max costs at 80% of total assets, they piss on each other just like Major League Baseball does arbitration. Then the judge decides for one side or the other, but no inbetween. The idea is the sides would settle before arbitration, and if not that, they would start out rather close because they need to propose a winning argument if it goes to arbitration. The clients in this situation probably get F-ed, but they both take a D to the A, not just the working/rich one. This process would be quick, each side would get maybe 1/2 hour to state their case.

The second part would be if one of the parties is caught in a lie. Wife says she has no other assets, she is just a working stiff, but mr mom proves she is delaying massive bonus checks or other assets. Then the party that is caught would have to pay for the costs associated with catching them. If the lawyer wants to go on a wild goose chase, and comes up snake eyes, then he loses the opportunity to bill the client, or if the client wanted the chase, that client gets to pay for it.

It would stop a lot of A sniffing when it shouldn't be sniffed. Especially when the A sniffer is just there to piss off the A, not to actually find hidden jackpots.