Often spouses and parents ask me why are other lawyer's retainers are so high in Maricopa County?  The answer is somewhat involved, but once you break down a lawyer's roll, you will quickly understand why some lawyers will charge a high initial payment, and how it's easy to avoid the high cost and expensive litigation.

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First, let start off with your typical divorce lawyer.  Most family law attorneys work within a office that employs staff, sometime multiple lawyers, several paralegals, secretaries, and other office "overhead."  This all costs a lot of money, and someone has to pay for it, and that person would be you.  There's little incentive for a lawyer to offer you services that are anything other than the cookie cutter approach (expensive) to a divorce or custody dispute. Plus, lawyers are not required to make any attempt to avoid or circumvent court rules that make cases more expensive.

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The cookie cutter divorce involves filing a case, and immediately starting work on disclosures and discovery, which is very time intensive work.  Rule 49 of the Arizona Rules of Family Law Procedure largely controls and dictates this "mandatory" disclosure process.  But one thing that many people don't know is that Rule 49 and all of it's deadlines and expensive requirements can be waived.  That's right!  You can simply agree with your spouse that you both don't want to waste several thousands of dollars taking part in a process that is not absolutely necessary to get a fair result.

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Now, there are a few cases where discovery is necessary (to find hidden assets, and things like that), but most cases do not require such intensive discovery in order to complete the case on fair terms. Also, if your spouse or the other parent also does not want to waste their money on the discovery process, they too will be also be wanting to be reasonable and avoid what will only cost a lot in attorney's fees and ultimately not impact the outcome of your case. 

 

It's important to note that you'll never hear someone say that they were so glad they spent thousands of dollars on discovery because they found valuable of assets that they previously didn't know about.  

 

What you will hear are people saying that their case was too expensive and they had no idea why its costs so much.   

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Mr. Nordini's initial deposit is often set at $1,500.00 to start most types of family law cases.​  If you're looking to save yourself thousands of dollars in the process, call Mr. Nordini today.  You can reach Paul Nordini at (480) 527-9000.