How to Have a Good Divorce
"There is no winning in divorce. Even when you win, you don't win."
Those are the first words of this week's episode from my guest, divorce lawyer Jodi Lazar.
I'll admit that a "good divorce" sounds like an oxymoron, like a pleasant colonoscopy or a quick trip to the DMV. But Jodi is a seasoned divorce lawyer here in Texas, and she told me that eight out of ten people who come to her say they want an amicable divorce.
This week, I had a conversation with Jodi about what people should do, and what they should absolutely not do, if they want a quote unquote good divorce. She has decades of experience, and she shoots it straight.
What a Good Divorce Looks Like
When someone tells Jodi they want an amicable divorce, she talks to them about her concept of a good divorce, which has a process. The process is what makes it possible to end up where I described: not emotionally further damaged.
In a good divorce, your divorce lawyer takes on all of the divorce work. You go figure out how to get to your next place in life as a divorced person. Maybe that takes six months. Maybe you're done in three. Maybe it's the beginning of a years-long process. Either way, you're working on yourself and not focusing on your divorce, while your lawyer and your spouse's lawyer work together to get both of you to mediation, ready to resolve your open items.
The decisions are still yours. What the lawyer gives you is an education, so you can go into mediation as a full participant in the settlement negotiations and decide what you are and aren't willing to do. In an amicable, good divorce, that usually means one day of mediation and a mediated settlement agreement that covers all of the kid issues and all of the financial issues. We don't go on and on and on. The case resolves because both sides are prepared.
I asked Jodi whether this was her way of saying "trust us, adhere to the process, and that's your best bet at getting through this as unscathed as possible." She changed my wording a little. For her, the goal is your best outcome. When you sign the mediated settlement agreement, you should feel confident that you got it. Both of you compromise, and both of you walk away knowing you did the best you could.
Why You Should Stay Out of the Negotiating
I suggested that a good divorce requires both spouses to be non-combative and cooperative. Jodi's answer surprised me. She doesn't ask anybody not to be combative. She asks them not to talk to their spouse about the divorce at all.
Her reasoning is practical. Spouses are not professionals. They don't know the law or how to apply it to their particular facts, and even if they did, they haven't been successful at negotiating good resolutions in this marriage, or they wouldn't be getting divorced. So get out of the way. Your work with your lawyer is being translated into what you wish you could do on your own, which you can't. That isn't a knock on you or your spouse. Your relationship is ending, and there is a legal system it all has to go through.
Jodi can't tell you how many people wish they could come in for one meeting, get strategy, and walk out with a deal that is enforceable, binding, and irrevocable. They can do the forms on their own. It just won't be the best outcome, because the forms don't address any individuality and don't explain what you're actually doing.
Brooke's Tip:
I've heard of situations where two people fill out the state forms, go to court, agree on everything, and get it done. I think that's the exception. A smooth, fast divorce doesn't tell anybody whether there was an equal power dynamic. I don't only mean a controlling husband and a wife on the other side of it. The manipulative one could just as easily be the wife. Jodi agreed that an easy signing doesn't mean it was a good agreement for one or both people.
“Just because you come into court with a signed state form document does not tell anybody if this is fair and equitable, if this is a just and right division.”
What If You Can't Afford a Lawyer?
Plenty of people are afraid hiring lawyers will make everything so much worse, and plenty simply can't afford one. That's a fair problem to have, which is why there are free services. I asked Jodi whether the online software platforms I keep seeing might be the best some people can do.
She said of course, yes, but she'd also invest in a consult with a divorce attorney. Do what you believe you can do, and talk with the lawyer about other ways to pay for legal services. If you have any net worth in your estate, a retirement account, a house with equity, room on your credit cards, or the ability to get a personal loan from your bank, you have more options than you think. You're allowed to incur debt for your legal services in a divorce, it's counted in the division, and the marriage pays for it on the bottom line.
What a Good Divorce Costs in Texas
I asked Jodi for a number to hold in your mind. On the bad end, she can't give one, because it's very high, impossible to guess, and more than anybody wants to spend. So we talked about the middle, which is her good divorce market. It's still not cheap.
Here is how it goes. You hire your lawyer and your spouse hires theirs, and each gathers the information they have access to. Let's say 30 days later, the two sides exchange what they have, figure out what's missing, and trade what they still need. Then come the property spreadsheets, and budgets if support is involved. Then a full day of mediation, and a signed mediated settlement agreement.
At that point you aren't divorced yet, but your deal is done. Your money is your money, their money is their money, your kid schedule is set, and your rights and duties are settled. Go live the deal you agreed to. The lawyers handle the paperwork, which takes several more months, and then you're done done and free of your lawyer. Jodi puts it at about three months to settlement and another three for the paperwork. The average price per file for that is twenty-five thousand dollars on each side, for her office's work.
Then I asked how it works when one side's lawyer costs twenty-five thousand and the other's costs forty. Is that split between the spouses, or paid from the marital pot, or up for negotiation? The marriage pays for the divorce. If Jodi's client pays twenty-five thousand out of pocket and the other side pays forty thousand, sixty-five thousand dollars is out of the marital estate. It's been spent, and it doesn't get renegotiated, because nobody splits every line item fifty-fifty.
If you paid your fees with a credit card, that debt goes to you in the deal but counts against the bottom line of what the marital estate is worth. So if you're taking twenty-five thousand dollars of debt because that's what your divorce cost, you'll get twenty-five thousand dollars of an asset to cover it, or you'll end up with less debt because the other side takes more.
How Mediation Works
Divorce is not the same legal path for everyone. Some people say "we're going to go to mediation," and what they mean is no lawyer for you, no lawyer for me, and a mediator who doesn't give legal advice but helps us toward an agreement. Jodi isn't trying to be flip, but there is nothing legal about that. No legal services are involved.
Her mediation looks different. It isn't done at the beginning. It's done after information has been gathered, exchanged, and analyzed, and after the client has been educated. Each spouse has a lawyer, and you never see each other. They mostly mediate on Zoom. Jodi's client is with her while the mediator moves from their room to the other side's room. The mediator is a family lawyer who is experienced at getting to deals, and by hearing the whole story in both rooms, the mediator can see where the compromise is and where entrenched ideas that are really based in feelings have a little bit of room. Then the offers narrow, offer by offer by offer. It usually takes three rounds.
The first round is a surprise to most people. From a legal standpoint, that first offer is more than your best day in court. It's your real ask. If you don't let people ask for what they really want, they won't be willing to compromise later. And it's shocking how much the other side, being married to this person and knowing what matters to them, will agree to things a court will never give you.
I asked for an example. Jodi said a court isn't going to get involved in a minor traveling alone, but that can be so important to a parent that it goes into an offer. The other spouse doesn't have to agree and may not believe in it. The answer could be no, and then that turns out to be the last thing everyone needs to agree on before they can sign. You can also agree on who pays for lacrosse lessons, or whether your kid can study abroad in high school, all of the real, day-to-day stuff that isn't in the Texas Family Code.
Why would a spouse give you those things? Maybe they feel guilty. Maybe they want you to have money for your children, which Jodi calls the best reason. Jodi tells people it doesn't matter, because the two of you are never going to agree on the reason.
“Everybody thinks compromise is giving up something, but compromise is a mindset.”
You have to stay open. You'll hear options you never thought of, and they might be workable, or the good option, or the best of bad options. Lawyers work with their clients on setting expectations, because you can't dictate the end. The end is an unknown, and you don't know what the agreement is going to be. You have to be willing to let go of things to get things.
Getting Ready for Mediation
Once the information is gathered and a mediator and a date are set, clients start meeting with Jodi again. It depends how many meetings are needed, but there is always at least one, and it runs several hours. She spends a lot of that time on how mediation goes and what it takes to negotiate a settlement, with plenty of questions along the way. They even get down to what to wear and what food to bring. You bring your laptop and its power cord, and you need your passwords to all of your financial accounts, so you're not going in with her blind.
Then they work on the first settlement proposal. The goal of the prep sessions is to get that first offer ready. Her client asks for what they want in the first round, understands they'll have to give up this or that, and knows their options for how to come out of the gate.
“They’re scared, but they’re ready.”
Jodi's office also has a divorce coach on staff. They learned that clients still need to be prepared emotionally before the day of, so she talks them through the emotions they're about to go through, including the night before, which is usually the worst. Once you're in mediation, you get swept up in it and the anxiety goes away. But it's also the day your marriage ends, and people want to be clear-headed. The lawyers are there to get the deal.
A second day of mediation is a different story. If the two lawyers and the mediator know the parties can get there, they'll stay. But a second day usually doesn't work, because people have too much time to think. They're not happy about what they have to compromise, they want to go, and they get very strategic.
When It Doesn't Settle
I asked how often things don't settle at mediation. In Jodi's office, the cases that don't are because of child-related issues. That's when the cost climbs past the twenty-five thousand dollar average. You're looking at discovery and experts, with retainers of ten grand, and forensic accountants if you have to prove yourself on property. Jodi doesn't see the outcome as a win or a loss. She sees it as a spectrum of where you came down on things.
After You Sign: The Mediated Settlement Agreement
I wanted to define a few terms for people. A mediated settlement agreement, or MSA, is basically the material terms of what you agreed on in the mediation. In Texas, it's signed at the mediation, and it has to contain certain terms required by law to be binding and irrevocable. That matters because you may wake up the next morning and not feel as compromising as you had to be the night before to get a deal done. Once the MSA is signed and meets the terms of the law, your financial marriage is over, your parenting plan is in place, and you go live the agreement you made.
Your lawyers are then responsible for creating the divorce decree, along with any closing documents you need to carry out the deal, like real estate transfer documents. Jodi compares it to buying a house. When you accept the contract, you've signed a term sheet, and when you go to close, there's a pile of documents. The MSA is the term sheet, and even though it's dense, it's still just a term sheet. An MSA covering kids and property can turn into an eighty-page decree, and they're never less than forty pages. It's a lot of technical drafting, and it takes about three months from settlement to entry of divorce, sometimes longer. The client sees the documents and goes over any questions before signing, but after that you don't see Jodi again. As I said to her, that's a good thing.
Three Things That Keep Fees and Timelines in Check
Stop fighting with your spouse. Don't bring the fight to the lawyers, and don't have it at home either. If you want an amicable, good divorce, you leave each other alone and respect each other. You're both going through a breakup and both figuring it out. You have to talk about the kids, and maybe about bills, but you don't get into arguments. You'll rack up fees and keep the divorce going if you do. When you're divorced, do you really want to be fighting with your spouse? Start practicing. I called it disengaging, and Jodi agreed, while acknowledging that you may have had a whole life like this and now you're being asked to be a different person.
Don't try to figure it all out on your own from AI or your walking group. You don't have to come to your consultation prepared. Jodi finds that people worry about getting a meeting because they haven't gathered all of their financial documents. You'll get homework from your lawyer, and you give your lawyer what you have access to. If you no longer have access, the other side's lawyer will get it for you. No matter what, they'll get everything, probably in a better form than you'd produce standing at the scanner with all your notes on it. You'll do it wrong, so just wait.
Find a lawyer you feel you can trust. Get referrals and ask people who did their divorce. Everybody knows some divorce lawyer. Do whatever research you feel you need to do, but you're looking for trust. Jodi can't guarantee you won't pick badly.
“Everybody says trust your lawyer, and you’re like, how do I find the person to trust? I married this person. I thought this would go forever.”
Once you find someone who has your back, don't email them a lot. Trust them and their process.
Brooke's Bonus Tip:
I don't want anyone to hear "trust the lawyer, trust the process" and think they won't hear back for three months. Jodi's office communicates throughout. Every email and every attachment goes to the client too, so they can see the work being done and know what is going on every single day. If you're not getting communication, that's not good.
The Bottom Line
I'm grateful to Jodi for translating decades of experience for us here. Learn more about Jodi on her website, lazarlaw.com. And you can hear all of this in her own words, along with a lot more I couldn't fit here, in the full episode.
Life is legal, so you've got to know the rules.
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This post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws vary by state and situation. For advice specific to your circumstances, consult a licensed attorney in your area.
