I think that if you drew up an agreement and scheduled a consultation for review of the agreement it should not be very much. The ones that you asked may have meant that the cost of them drafting an agreement and reviewing would changed depending on how much is included…more marital assets to include, more details to add…is this going to end up in court…that type of things. I do not think that attorneys base their fees on how much money you have. I think my husband paid somewhere close to $200 for an attorney to write up the agreement in legal terms that he had put together. There was also a fee for checking deeds records but it wasn’t much at all. It’s worth it to have an attorney and someone on either side look over the agreement. It’s not normally a good idea to have one attorney for both parties. If you are drafting your own agreement and it seems fair to you both then the attorney will be essentially working for one of you. At the very least the other party should have a friend, family member or someone trusted to read over before signing. Sometimes someone not so close to the situation can see something that you missed, a wrong year put in or a missed property…
I drew up my own separation agreement. My attorney reviewed it for $100 and gave his suggestions. Very good suggestions I might add. It was such a good separation agreement my STBX wanted her attorney to review it. Everything devolved from there. That was a year ago. Funny thing is she thought everything was fair… until the attorney looked at it. Just my experience.
This is not an easy question to answer. The process of drafting a separation agreement is more than simply throwing a few paragraphs together, it involves the review of all your financial information and your specific legal situation. This is a process that takes many hours. Many attorney’s will answer your questions about a separation agreement for simply a consultation fee, but understand most attorney’s are not going to put their stamp of approval on an agreement unless they have reviewed all your financial and legal issues.
P.S. Please feel free to bring up this or any other topic on our live call-in show every Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. EST. Visit radio.rosen.com/live for details
Helena M. Nevicosi
Attorney with Rosen Law Firm
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If we draft up our own separation agreement but want one attorney to review it for both of us what is the typical cost? When I have asked the question elsewhere the attorneys come across as wanting to know how much money we have and such as if there are different rates depending on how much money we have. Perhaps that is the case. Money is very tight and neither of us can afford a large amount of lawyer fee’s however we want to protect ourselves.
Thanks