Finally retained a top-rated atty to handle upcoming divorce. Together 24 years. Any advice? Lessons learned? Thx
You tell us. I thought it was a bad sign when you said last year your wife said she was ok if you started seeing someone else if she didn't know about it. My impression was you did not give her an unambiguous answer. As far as getting a top rated attorney, you are a genius. I knew someone who decided to go it alone. He had three kids. I could go into further detail, but this is a family site and don't want to cause irreparable harm.
The more you can both agree on outside of the legal system, the better. You mentioned before that she wants to get back to Japan, so I would frame it up to her like this: "The more we can agree on, the faster you'll get back to Japan. Otherwise, this could take years in the courts, and most of the money you'd have for yourself will be paid to attorneys."
hey thx Baron, brilliant... didn't think of it that way; makes sense. and its true, all the attys say amicable is much cheaper than contested divorces. + will use that, thx!
Amicable is all well and good. It's also highly unlikely. Her lawyer, aka sicario, benefits from making things anything but amicable. Then you have her friends and when that hen fest happens they'll convince her to carve you up like a Christmas turkey. You were "unfaithful" to the wedding vows, a legal contract. Consider yourself lucky with a 50/50 split after you pay 100 percent of the legal costs.
Hopefully you recommend a lawyer to her instead of her finding one, as any good divorce attorney will do a social media search and the stuff you have posted here and who knows where else may work against you. I am not judging, we all have different things in our lives, but this could be a reality in yours.
IRAs, 401Ks, and pensions may come into play. Can you imagine the new dog and how the attorney fees could come into play trying to resolve that one!!