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Services of experts. The agreement may require you to pay the fees of other professionals hired to work on your case: an actuary, a custody evaluator, or a real estate appraiser, for example. Often, lawyers include a clause that says they can hire experts without your approval, and then bill you. You might want to ask for a limiting clause, stating that experts who will charge more than a certain amount must be cleared with you first.

Refund for unearned fee. Don't sign a fee agreement that says that your retainer is nonrefundable. If there is money in the trust account when your case is over, you should get it back. In fact, a nonrefundable retainer is likely to violate ethics rules in most states, so you might think twice about the lawyer, too.

Sample Attorney-Client Agreement

Sample Attorney-Client Agreement (continued)

Ending the agreement. The fee agreement should say that you can terminate the lawyer's services whenever you want to, and that the lawyer can also end the lawyer-client relationship, but not in a way that would affect you negatively. Sometimes the language used for this is that the lawyer can't withdraw at a time that would "prejudice" your interests.

It's guaranteed that these won't be the only provisions in the agreement. The a sample agreement above has fairly typical provisions. Make sure you read over the contract your lawyer gives you very carefully, ask the lawyer about anything you don't understand, and have a trusted friend review it as well to catch anything that you didn't see.

What You Can Expect to Pay

The total cost of a divorce trial depends mainly on the length of the trial and your lawyer's hourly rate. Lawyer hours are, by far, the major expense in a trial.

From the lawyer's mouth ...

In my most recent trials, one was basically three long hearings and the total cost was about $15,000, which is unusual-it's a rare case that costs less than $25,000. The last moveaway case I did cost my client $50,000, and the most expensive trial I ever did was a case with a lot of money at stake-my client paid me $120,000 by the time all was said and done."

-Divorce attorney

Here's an estimate of the costs of a two-day trial with the most basic expert testimony. Let's assume the lawyer charges $250 per hourprobably a fairly conservative estimate. Expert witnesses sometimes charge less for their out-of-court work but more for court testimony, so we'll use an average for each of the experts.

The Price of Fighting It Out

This estimate doesn't take into account costs like copying or investigative fees. It also doesn't include any of your time spent in preparation and in trial, which will cause you to miss work (and stress you out more than you can probably imagine).

Some trials may be less expensive, but as you can see, even a oneday trial with no expert witnesses will cost you tens of thousands of dollars. A more complex one will easily take you into the six-figure realm. And there's a chance you might end up paying your spouse's attorneys' fees as well as your own if you lose and the judge thinks you have the ability to pay. (See "Attorneys' Fees," in `After the Trial," below.)

Is Fault a Factor?

Some states still allow you to allege fault as the grounds for your divorce if you want to. There's a difference between alleging fault as the reason you're getting divorced, and alleging fault as a reason for the judge to divide property or award support in favor of one spouse. Unless you do want the judge to consider fault in dividing property and awarding support, or unless you live in New York and don't want to wait out the long separation period before you can qualify for no-fault divorce, there's no reason to allege fault when you file your divorce papers. And even if you want the judge to consider your spouse's wrongdoing when deciding the issues, you don't have to allege fault as the reason for the divorce if you don't want to. Take your lawyer's advice on this, as it may