The end of a marriage can bring grief, anger, relief, and many other emotions. You might have known this time was coming or been completely blindsided by it. Either way, there’s a lot to process. During this emotional time, you must make decisions that can impact the rest of your life and your children’s lives going forward. Making decisions with such raw emotions can sometimes be detrimental. It’s essential to have an affordable divorce attorney in Chicago on your side to help you see the situation objectively. They can educate you about your rights and stand up for them. An attorney can help you make the right choices for yourself and your family.
Some divorcing couples end up in a courtroom, and some don’t. Without knowing the specifics of your case, it can be difficult to predict. Divorces are either contested or uncontested. In a contested divorce, the spouses can’t reach agreements on one or more crucial points of the Divorce. This might include:
Contested divorces can also involve custody of a family pet or even whether to get a divorce or not. Since they can’t work out an agreement, they will need to go before a family court judge if the experienced family law attorneys are unable to help reach a compromise, settlement, or resolution by agreement. The judge will then determine what their arrangements will be. This gives both spouses less control over the outcome of their Divorce and will take more time.
However, if both spouses can agree on these often-contested issues, they might not need to go to Court, outside of the day of their divorce. When matters are uncontested, the process can be initiating, drafting, and entering the paperwork that both parties agree upon to move it to a prove-up, which is the day of the divorce, and entry of a Judgment for Dissolution of Marriage. A judge will simply need to review their agreement and sign off on it. An affordable divorce lawyer in Chicago can help you negotiate agreeable terms with your spouse. Sometimes this is done between attorneys for both sides and can even be worked through mediation or a collaborative divorce.
It’s normal to want your Divorce to be finalized as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there is no way to know precisely how long your Divorce might take. The more complicated the issues or heated the disagreements are, the more time and money a divorce will consume. Contested divorces can take up to 18 months, sometimes even longer. If you are filing an uncontested divorce, the process typically only takes six months or less. By hiring an experienced and affordable Chicago divorce attorney, you can ensure that your Divorce doesn’t take any longer than it needs to. Sometimes attorneys can even come up with creative solutions, allowing spouses to resolve contested issues sooner.
At Ward Family Law, we know that facing the end of your marriage and looking for an affordable Chicago divorce attorney can be unnerving. You might also be worried about finances. Hiring the best family law attorney for you doesn’t need to cost a fortune. Schedule a consultation with one of our experienced attorneys today so that we can get to know you, evaluate your situation, and provide personalized solutions tailored to your needs. We can work on a plan that will fit your budget and protect your legal interests at the same time. Contact us today to book your private consultation.
I knew we were going to have a custody battle from day one. It was going to be mean and messy and expensive and long. I did not know if I could handle it but I had to do it for my kids. Jennifer litigated my case to the end - we had an attorney for the kids, we had psych evaluations, we had reports for the Judge, we had court date after court date. She was strategic, smart, planned well ahead, and kept on top of everything. Thanks to her and her legal eagles my kids are in a…
We were not married but had two kids and we were both listed as the parents on the birth certificates. What I did not know at the time was that the birth certificate (for parents who are not married) does not count in Chicago! You have to have a paternity test or have signed some special paperwork at the hospital that we did not know about at the time. Ward Family Law prepared the court filings so that we could establish our parental rights. Thank you!
At the end of my divorce case I realized that the paperwork required us to provide the court with a Qualified domestic relations order (QDRO) in order for our retirement and investment accounts to be divided as we had agreed. The problem was that we did not have them done in time. Jennifer and her team stepped in and handled contacting the plan administrators, completing the draft QDROs, submitting them for pre-approval of everyone and then presenting them to the court. While we had hoped this was super easy there were a lot of steps and a lot of things…
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