By Stange Law Firm, PC on Tuesday, January 12, 2016.
Divorce is comparable to an all you can eat cafeteria. You can enter the line, and choose a small salad, a single entrée, and a small side or two. You can even skip dessert. Or, you can begin heaping your tray with mounds of food until it is difficult to tell if you still have a plate underneath it all.
You and your future ex-spouse can make a choice between forms of divorce. Some demand very little of the Missouri family court or can take up much of the judges times. You can choose to work with your soon to be ex-spouse on a mediated solution; all the terms and conditions of your divorce agreement already worked out, and simply present it to the judge for a final approval and their signature.
Or, you can do the polar opposite. You can view it as the epitome of an adversarial process and adopt a scorched earth policy of dealing with every issue your former spouse presents. You can choose to contest every element of the child custody, child support, alimony, and property divisions of the proceeding.
You can pile your litigation plate high, until even the clerks of court dread to see you entering the courthouse.
But additional to the high costs of attorney fees and court costs, there is another price you have to pay: generating a toxic environment for you and your children.
Court proceedings are public, and most situations transacted there are public record. If you don’t mind giving anyone who wants to read it access to the most intimate details of your personal and financial life, you may want to avoid the pyrrhic victory contentious litigation can bring about.
Source: eonline.com, “Trace Adkins’ Divorce Case Settled; Country Singer Ending 17-Year Marriage to Wife Rhonda,” Rebecca Macatee, June 17, 2105
