How To Successfully Negotiate Your Divorce

In an ideal situation you and your spouse would be able to come to an agreement on as much as possible prior to ever stepping in-front of a judge in order to minimize court time and the legal fees associated with it. Unfortunately spouses rarely have the same idea as to what the ideal outcome of a divorce will be. Property Division and Child Custody are the most common areas of disagreement and conflict. In order to get the best possible outcome from this situation its important you understand how to successfully negotiate your divorce.

In the midst of this conflict it can be tempting for some men to want their attorney to take complete control and simply hope for the best, this is a decision that can easily turn against you. You need to take full control of your divorce and be very clear about what you want.

Ask yourself these questions:

What am I willing to lose?
What am I absolutely not willing to lose?

It is conceivable that your wife’s attorneys will be encouraging her to ask for everything. They may even draw up an official list of demands and ask you to sign it.

Don’t sign it.

And don’t let these demands discourage you. This is simply a negotiation tactic and it’s one that you should follow as well. It is significantly easier to make concessions down the road than it is to ask for more so always ask for more than what you feel is fair.

Throughout the negotiation process it is important to keep a number of things in mind:

Ask for more than you need as to have room to move and change your stance without losing the things that are most important to you.
Don’t give something for nothing. Things should be divided evenly, there is legislature in place meant to assure this but if you find yourself being double-talked by your wife’s legal team and you personally sign away more than you should there isn’t much you can do to get it back.
Consider what it is costing you (in legal-fees and time/lost work) to fight over items. Don’t hurt yourself by being too prideful, if it costs less to let something go than to continue fighting for it, maybe it’s in your best interest to let it go.
Get it in writing: As American Film Producer Samuel Goldwyn once said, “a verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” Don’t simply take your wife’s word for things, if an important agreement has been made get it in writing.

The Discovery Process

Prior to the trial your first interaction with your spouse’s legal team will come during the Discovery process. This is the civil procedure used to obtain as much information and evidence as possible from the rival party. The first step of this is called Disclosure, which is simply an exchange of evidence. All the information your legal team has will be sent to your wife’s legal team and in return your legal team will receive a copy of her information, including financial summaries and any official statements that she has made.

If your spouse is feeling particularly vindictive and has privately made comments to her attorneys that you could be hiding assets, or that you are not being forthcoming about finances they may look to cause you more trouble by implementing some other Discovery methods to attack you with. The first option they have to do this is an interrogatory.

Divorce Interrogatories | Financial Summary

Interrogatories are simply a set of questions that you will be asked to answer. Most law offices have a standard form for interrogatories so they can be quite long, with questions that feel almost entirely irrelevant to your case. Some states have limits on the amount of questions that can be asked, usually it is 40. Unfortunately each section is considered to be just one question so that doesn’t help much with the length.

Still, if presented with this you will be expected to complete this document in full and submit it back to them within thirty days. The questions will focus primarily on your assets and liabilities, as well as any allegations, potential witnesses, or exhibits/evidence you will be bringing to trial. Depending on your situation some of these questions will not apply to you and you can simply write N/A. If you are unsure of something in the document, consult your attorney.

Interrogatories are usually broken down into two types; financial interrogatories and childcare interrogatories. Completing a Financial Interrogatory is very similar to completing your Financial Summary, and you may find yourself repeating information. There will be questions directed toward:

Bank Accounts – their balances, the date the account was opened, list of authorized users on the account, etc.
Real Estate
Mortgages and/or Rental and Lease Information
Salaries Information – including questions about bonuses, benefits, beneficiaries on benefits
Investments – Stocks and Stock Options, Mutual Funds
Credit Cards – expiry dates, etc.
Inheritance Information
Insurance Policies
Safe Deposit Boxes
Loan and Debt information

And so on, and so forth. It is a bit like being audited and can be very time consuming. Keep in mind that if they don’t request information about something then you are not expected to offer it up voluntarily, just answer the questions asked.

Divorce Interrogatories | Childcare-specific Questions

If you have children another type of interrogatory that you may be requested to complete will be one filled with questions dealing specifically with childcare and the well-being of your children. Unlike the financial questions, wherein you’ll be filling in specific figures and dates, childcare based questions are a little bit more like essay or creative writing assignments.

These questions will be about;

Disagreements you’ve had with your wife regarding your children.
Your involvement or planned involvement with their education or extra-curricular activities.
Methods of discipline and whether you and your wife agree or disagree on this aspect of parenting.

While these type of questions require you to write out full answers, the basic principle of not offering information that is not requested still applies. The main reason for this is that tone is something that doesn’t translate well in the written form and if you get into too much detail about a disagreement it may appear that you are being passive aggressive.

It’s a difficult line to walk but usually simply writing a little less than what you first want to write is a safe way to avoid that problem. As an example; if you and your wife disagree on which school your child will go to you may be tempted to write something along the lines of;

“I think our children will do fine going to the school I went to as a child, while my wife would rather send them off to a private school and slap me with the bill.”

A shorter way to say this is simply,

“My wife and I disagree on which school to send the kids to.”

It’s a much cleaner statement and doesn’t place the blame on either of you, it just answers the question that was asked.

The opposite side of this is writing too little or completely disregarding the questions. If you answer a question asking if you and your wife have had disagreements in the past by simply writing: “No”, you have effectively put it in writing that whatever she thinks is best for your kids is also your opinion. You’ve conceded control of the entire issue over to her.

You need to always ensure that you are being clear and that you are taking control of your divorce, not passively letting your divorce just happen to you. If the two of you do agree on the issue, specify what you agreed:

“No disagreement, as long as _____ still stands.”

Having your attorney on hand to assist with any questions that feel open-ended to a point where you’re worried you might say something wrong is a good fail safe.

Interrogatories should be answered truthfully as they are considered to be a document completed under oath and if you are found to be submitting false information you could face additional legal action. Keep your answers direct and to the point, do not volunteer information that is not asked of you and if you find questions that you are not comfortable answering – possibly because they are accusatory in nature, or are specifically asking for information you feel is completely irrelevant – you are entitled to file an objection with the court.

As with Disclosure, interrogatories work both ways. If your wife’s legal team makes the decision to send an interrogatory to you, your legal team will respond in turn by sending an interrogatory to the opposing side for your wife to fill out.

Another element of the discovery process that may come up is that of depositions. Yes, if you are in the midst of a truly adversarial divorce you can expect to be deposed and the result of a deposition can be devastating if you are not prepared for it. Fortunately we have a step by step guide to successfully handle being deposed in a divorce which can be found here.