litigation Archives - Tracy Stewart, CPA

Divorce is Divorce except when…

March 15, 2015 by Tracy Leave a Comment

One of the most frequent questions I am asked by College Station clients is about the difference between Collaborative Law divorce, litigation (going to court) and mediation or informal settlement.

My clients ask this question when they are consumed with fear and negative emotions at the start of their divorce process. Often they don’t trust their spouses to be rational and reasonable. They are fearful that they will lose what financial security they may have and face poverty in the near future. They cannot believe that litigation is as expensive as they are warned because they have never experienced it and cannot imagine what it is like. Likewise, they do not know what to expect of mediation. They usually think mediation is a process separate and apart from litigation. In fact, mediation is an event within the traditional litigation process. Mediation can also be used to settle tough disputes inside a Collaborative Law case.

My good friend and colleague, Camille Milner, has beautifully explained the differences in her blog. She talks about Collaborative Law, mediation, traditional litigation (the courtroom style) and settlement conferences. Please hop on over to her site, Milner-Law.com, and read about it for yourself.

How much will this divorce cost?

May 2, 2014 by Tracy Leave a Comment

I hear questions from people who come to me for divorce financial advice. No matter whether we are talking about College Station or Houston, the answer is always “it depends.”

It depends upon which divorce process you choose. Do it yourself, litigation, mediation or collaborative. Even the do it yourself can be expensive if you are not fully aware of the complexities of your financial situation. Don’t be like most people. Don’t assume your situation is simple.

It depends upon how cooperative you and your spouse are going to be with each other. Will you compromise quickly? Will you fight over the vacation souvenirs? (Yes, I saw that happen.)

It depends upon whether you are counting the future hidden costs of incomplete information. Don’t be focused only on the present. Look ahead at the possible financial gotchas that will bite you if you shortcut your divorce. Hire competent professionals: attorney, divorce CPA and child specialist.

It depends upon whether you hire the cheapest or the most expensive attorney. Don’t do either. Hire an attorney with average hourly rates. Ask other professionals for recommendations. Your friends and colleagues will give you names, but that doesn’t mean their favorite is the right fit for you.

It depends upon how organized you are. The more organized, the more you can save on fees.

How to Keep Control of Your Divorce Costs

July 8, 2013 by Tracy Leave a Comment

Divorce costs can spiral out of control if you don’t keep track of them. There are two easy steps to keeping control of your divorce costs. Whether you live in Bryan/College Station or Houston, these steps will work for you.

In a collaborative law divorce case, you will know at all times what your combined expenses are. It is part of the transparency of the collaborative process. Unfortunately, that is not the situation with traditional litigated cases. Finding out what your spouse’s expenses have been and will be is a challenging task in a litigated case.

The first step in controlling your divorce costs is to choose the collaborative law divorce process. Spending money on such items as valuing the real estate or the family business is a decision discussed in meetings. The issues regarding whether and how to incur costs are openly discussed in joint meetings with attorneys and the neutral CPA until both spouses understand the pros and cons and come to a mutual agreement.

The best way to control costs is to continually see what they are. The smartest collaborative divorce couples with whom I have worked were the ones who opened a new checking account just to pay the divorce bills. They moved money into this new account and then tracked what they were spending via the new account. If they paid for a divorce bill with a credit card, they paid that one credit card charge from the new account. All costs were shown in this account. These couples knew exactly how much they were spending on their divorce and were able to ratchet the costs down when desired.

I have worked on about 100 collaborative law divorces. If you would like my advice on which collaborative law attorneys to interview, feel free to contact me at stewart@texasdivorcecpa.com.

Know Your Options: Reduce Your Divorce Costs

June 24, 2013 by Tracy

Bryan/College Station couples who are contemplating divorce struggle with the fear of running through all their money. You have heard stories of normal people like you having scorch the earth divorces, huge attorney fees and an empty retirement account when it is over. You can avoid those horrors by understanding your divorce options.

At the basic level there are just three kinds of divorce processes. You and your spouse can choose the best on for you. I’ll give you my take on these from the vantage point of a financial advisor, not an attorney.

Do it yourself

This is the kitchen table option. I have seen this work best when couples have no minor children, no mortgage and no retirement savings. This option can be done without attorneys, if you have a very simple situation. I have seen couples with just one of those attributes (children, mortgage or retirement accounts) try to go the DIY route and crater before they could reach an agreement – but after they argued themselves into a tense situation. Your situation really does need to be simpler than simple for this process to work.

Lawyer up for litigation

This is the traditional route. You hire a lawyer and you start the old fashioned process. Each side demands the same information from each other. Attorney fees climb as each attorney prepares for trial. If you and your spouse don’t agree on everything, you will end up in mediation – and if that fails, you end up court. The cost of that is shocking plus you have lost control of the outcome. As bad as I have made this sound, there are cases that belong in litigation.

Get a collaborative law divorce

A Brazos County collaborative law divorce is one that operates under the protocols of the Collaborative Law Institute of Texas. You want to work with an attorney who has been trained by the Institute. (I have been in cases with untrained attorneys. The divorces were painful and expensive.) In a collaborative law case, you are in control of the outcome, the speed and the cost. You learn how to co-parent with your ex-spouse. Everything is focused on helping the two of you resolve your differences with dignity and more forward to your newly defined lives. Everyone is sensitive to your costs and work with you to minimize the financial hit.

When you are ready to look for a divorce attorney in the Brazos County, contact me. I can help you find the divorce attorney who best fits your preferences.

Use Mutual Interests to Save Money in Divorce

June 17, 2013 by Tracy Leave a Comment

canstockphoto2553614nest egg

Understanding your mutual interests will help you and your spouse to negotiate a satisfactory divorce settlement. Traditional litigation does not foster mutual interests. Collaborative law divorces use mutual interests to get couples to quick, lower cost resolution. Savvy couples seek out the Brazos County collaborative law professionals. The lower cost of collaborative divorces means longer financial security for each spouse.

When couples head into divorce, rarely do they chat about their mutual interests. They usually lawyer-up and entrench in their respective positions. Then the long, slow process begins. Attorneys write letters back and forth. In Brazos County, they use snail mail. One begins to wonder if the attorneys are purposely dragging these divorces out as long as they can.

I’ve seen hundreds of divorces in Houston, Bryan, College Station and Austin. I have observed that in the litigation divorce style, the couple cannot see that they have mutual interests. In the collaborative law divorces, the couples use their mutual interests to get to a faster, lower cost settlement.

The collaborative divorce couples got themselves into a better process because they knew what to ask each attorney they interviewed. Each spouse asked attorneys whether they are collaboratively trained. Those attorneys who do both litigated and collaborative divorces have a wider range of tools to help their clients.

Collaboratively trained attorneys also understand that when couples work together in the collaborative process to reach a settlement based on their mutual interests, the case goes faster and their clients reach better settlements. All this means lower cost to the couple. That translates to financial security.

If you are concerned about dropping a lot of money on a divorce, work towards a collaborative settlement that is based on mutual interests. For help in effectively defining and achieving your mutual interests or in finding the best collaborative attorneys for you, contact me at stewart@texasdivorcecpa.com.

The Secret of Finding the Best Divorce Attorney in Brazos County

May 13, 2013 by Tracy Leave a Comment

The best divorce attorney is the one who best fits you and your divorce issues. Don’t think this would be your friend’s divorce attorney. Nor the attorney with the biggest caseload. Nor the biggest law firm. The optimal attorney for you will be the one who has experience with your issues, communicates well and shares your priorities.

No one has exactly your divorce. It only takes one small condition to make your situation significantly different that of someone else’s divorce. You need to find the attorney with experience in your particular issues. If you own rental real estate, you need an attorney with experience in negotiating effective settlements involving rental units. If you are not sure how to proceed with your case, you need an attorney who can offer you choices – one who is great in the courtroom, an effective negotiator and is trained in collaborative law.

Communicating well means communicating easily with you. Are you comfortable with emails? Would you like an attorney who prefers phone calls? What are your needs for speedy replies from your attorney? I had a client who resorted to sending her local attorney a certified letter just to get his attention.

Know what is important to you. Do you want to save money? Then I recommend you seek an attorney whose style includes welcoming your do-it-yourself assistance. Do you want to have a cordial co-parenting relationship with your ex? Then I recommend you seek an attorney with collaborative law training. What are your priorities?

If you are looking for the right divorce attorney in Brazos County, send me an email to stewart@TexasDivorceCPA.com. Let’s take a few minutes to talk about your situation, needs and priorities. I can refer you to the local divorce attorney with the best fit for you.

Divorce Distractions Cost Real Money

April 11, 2011 by Tracy Leave a Comment

Divorce is a distracting process. You have your own life to keep up. If you have children, you are spending extra time helping them deal with your divorce. If you are in a litigated divorce, you are not in control of your time. If you are in a collaborative divorce, you still have to get to meetings and gather information. If you have friends, you are spending additional time grousing with them about your divorce, your attorney, your kids and your soon-to-be-ex. With these distractions, any normal person can miss a payment.

Recently, Wall Street Journal Getting Going columnist, Karen Blumenthal, wrote an informative column, How to Wreck Your Credit Score. Karen notes, “The severe consequences underscore that you shouldn’t shrug off even an accidentally missed [mortgage] payment… Being 30 days late on a house payment – even if it is an accident – can knock 100 points off a pristine 780 credit score, moving you from qualifying for the very best interest rates to the edge of subprime territory.”

So, how bad can that be? She explains that if you have a 620 score, you would pay almost 12% on a four-year $25,000 care loan. If you have a 780 score, you would pay 5% on that same loan. The difference is almost $4,000 over the four-year loan. I’m sure you can think of something better to do with $4,000.

Where would you rather spend $4,000?

How to Stop Dithering in Divorce

September 28, 2010 by Tracy Leave a Comment

Psychologists have been mulling over the human brain for eons. Only recently they have been studying how people make decisions. They have concluded that some people see life as black-and-white and others see shades of gray.

Yeah, I know…. Duh. But a recent Wall Street Journal article, Why So Many People Can’t Make Decisions, offers some useful tips to those who are going through a divorce (whether litigation or collaborative law) and those professionals who are assisting them.

Shades of gray people have more trouble in relationships. They can’t seem to make decisions and when they do, they regret them. It’s easy to see that troubled relationships may end in divorce, but the key concept here is the difficulty in making decisions during the divorce negotiations. Having to make decisions on how to divide the family wealth and debt is sure to make anybody stop and think carefully before committing.

Black-and-white thinkers tend to focus on what is important to them. If your spouse is one of these, pay attention to what is important to him or her. Focus on those things to find a way to reach a compromise in your divorce. Shades-of-gray people are overwhelmed with too many choices. If your spouse is one of these, try to pare down the number of options for dividing property or sharing time with the kids.

You can avoid making the big divorce decisions altogether by choosing the litigation route and tossing the decision to a judge. Or you can maintain control of your divorce by choosing the collaborative law process. In the latter, you get to make quick or slow decisions. You can pare down your choices or expand them. Collaborative law divorce is a process than can be molded to fit black-and-white thinkers and shades-of-gray thinkers, even if they are husband and wife.

Divorcing Boss Becomes Control Freak

September 8, 2010 by Tracy Leave a Comment

In Handling a Boss Who Micromanages, Wall Street Journal columnist, Sue Shellenbarger, addressed a reader question about a micromanaging boss in the throws of a bitter divorce. Whether you are in College Station or Boston, this is a problem that occurs frequently when a fellow employee is duking out a divorce. By the looks of it, I doubt if this boss chose the collaborative law route for her divorce.

Litigated divorces take a lot of time and energy. The divorcing parties have no control over the requirements and time involved. This can drive a person to seek excessive control at work. That, in turn, can cause coworker anxiety, distraction and wasted time. The experts quoted in this column recommend the reader hunt down the boss, stand in front of the boss’ office door at 7:30 am and meet with the human resources manager and the CEO. This may be effective, but it sure does eat away at constructive work time.

If you are considering a divorce, for the sake of your own job as well as that of your coworkers, learn about collaborative law. It is a divorce method that lets you be in control of the process, the time demands and the pace. For more information, visit the Collaborative Law Institute of Texas website.

Divorce on the Cheap

August 28, 2010 by Tracy Leave a Comment

There is a great article in the Wall Street Journal about how to divorce without laying out a fortune in the process. Writer Mary Pilon describes cost factors of divorce and ways to keep your costs down from do-it-yourself to collaborative divorce.

Based on my experience in Bryan/College Station and Houston, the least expensive divorce is done by striking an agreement between the two of you and taking it to an attorney to write up the necessary documents. If you are having trouble getting your spouse to agree on things or you want to be sure you are making smart decisions, try the ala carte menu method. Get an hour or two with divorce professionals who are not attorneys.

Divorce CPA – Connect with a divorce CPA for a short consultation. Lay out your financial situation and ask for suggestions on property division. Ask for tips how to do the actual division – the steps to change ownership of investments, retirement accounts, etc. You can get this done online or in person. CPAs charge less than attorneys and know more about the financial issues and details.

Divorce Parenting Coordinator – Find a Parenting Coordinator to consult with if you and your spouse cannot agree on how to share your children. Parenting Coordinators charge less than attorneys and have more experience in advising families in divorce.

If you want names of divorce CPAs or Parenting Coordinators, contact me. If you are in the Bryan/College Station or Houston area, I can direct you to local specialists and even an attorney who just writes up the documents but stays out of the courtroom.