The most expensive divorce process is each party hires an attorney and going through a trial. Divorces come to this when spouses can’t agree on the divorce issues.

The lawyer fees after a full trial are in the tens of thousands of dollars (maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars)… for each lawyer.

Guess who pays? You and your spouse.

Putting this into perspective, if you own a home and have $100,000 in equity in that home. Plus $100,000 in savings. Half of your joint property will go to lawyers. As you can see, going to trial over your divorce is by far the most expensive. This is just an example. Going to trial can be less or more expensive (yes, it can actually cost even more) – depending on the circumstances.

What About Simply Hiring a Divorce Lawyer to Do the Paperwork?

This is much, much cheaper than going to trial. This works if you and your spouse agree to all the terms of divorce. You can find divorce lawyers who will process the paper for you. It’s still not the cheapest methods for getting a divorce (see below), but it’s a sound approach because you’ll receive legal advice (which you’ll pay for).

One caution though – legal advice is tricky. Some lawyers might encourage litigation. Even if you do have a good chance at getting a little more than you’ve agreed to with your spouse, your legal fees could be far more than any gain. You must weigh what you might gain in court versus the cost of going to trial. If you’re being counselled to change what you and your spouse may have agreed to, you could be opening yourself up to a long court battle. Your spouse could despise the fact you’re going back on your agreement and not take that kindly. I don’t mean to say to ignore your legal advice; instead, you must keep the big picture in mind.

If you and your spouse haven’t agreed to anything, and you each hire a lawyer simply for legal advice and to process the paperwork, then it may be worth some negotiation between the lawyers to pin down agreement. However, if it looks like you’re heading toward full out litigation, be careful, because the costs will escalate incredibly fast. In fact, even if your lawyer is negotiating, be sure you know how much legal fees are being incurred along the way. They add up fast! If you’re millionaires, spend away, but if you aren’t wealthy, nothing consumes marital assets like legal fees in a court battle.

Cheap Divorce Options

1. Do it Entirely on Your Own

At the other end of the spectrum, being the cheapest divorce is doing your own divorce. This mean you find the proper state divorce forms. Fill them out. And file them with the appropriate court. You then serve filed documents on your spouse. If you and your spouse agree on everything, and assuming you filled in the documents correctly, you’ll have achieved the cheapest form of divorce. The only cost is the court fees – which vary from state to state.

2. Use an Online Divorce Service

One other way to get a cheap divorce is using an online divorce service to complete your documents. You pay anywhere from $250 to $300 for a quality service (depending which service). This amounts to about 1 hour of a lawyer’s time. You also pay court filing fees. The advantage here is if you’re eligible to get a divorce without an attorney, a quality online divorce service will fill out the proper divorce for you. Also a good divorce service should guarantee that your documents will get filed. Yes, courts will reject documents if they are not correctly filled out.

3. Use an Online Divorce Service, Then Get Legal Advice

If you’re not comfortable not getting legal advice after using a divorce service or filling out the forms yourself, take your completed documents to a lawyer. You can pay for legal advice, but not the document preparation. Lawyers meet with people for legal advice all the time. When you set up your appointment, state you’re looking for legal advice about the terms of your divorce.

This is a very good way to save on document preparation, but also ensuring you get some legal advice about your divorce.

4. Hire a Mediator

If you and your spouse simply cannot agree on all the divorce issues, consider hiring a mediator before going to trial. This can save thousands of dollars. You can have a lawyer represent you or do it on your own. Once the terms are informally agreed upon, you can stipulate to get legal advice to ensure it’s reasonable in the circumstances.

If you don’t wish to get legal advice after using mediation, then simply hire a divorce service to draft up the documents or do it yourself.