My friend is in a bitter divorce and they cannot settle it so they are going to trial in a few weeks. According to him his wife is asking for things a retired judge as mediator said she will never get. I’m divorced and my lawyer said it’s rare to go to trial.
It’s rare for any case to go to trial. Yet there are trials everyday.
Most divorce trials are probably not over the divorce* per se*, but on how to allocate the assets and liabilities. In Washington (where I have been through two divorces and represented a few parties as well) the parties can pretty much predict what would happen in court and come to an agreement to save the time and money of a trial. Nonetheless, emotions run high and sometimes one party or the other simply wants to air their grievances in court.
yes it seems like the only people who come out ahead if it goes to trial are the lawyers for both sides who can charge more billable hours.
Fortunately I have no personal experience of this, but based on numerous friends and family members who have been through divorces with varying degrees of acrimony, the judges keep sending the couples back to negotiation and mediation, until either they reach an agreement (or they run out of money to fight over).
I don’t think of the 10-15 divorces I know of, any of them actually went to trial. None of them involved charges of abusive or unfit parenting. I think those are the ones most likely to go to trial. Where one spouse will not agree to visitation (or unsupervised visitation) by the other.
A friend of mine went through 12 rounds of mediation, which all failed, then headed to trial. Her lawyer said that about 1% of cases go to trial.
from what I know visitation might be the sticking point. They have 4 kids high school and junior high age.
Could be. In Washington, kids at that age would get a say in things. The default would be 50/50 parenting, if that can work logistically.
and now I heard he probably has no lawyer for the trial since he has not paid the lawyer enough. Will the judge let this go ahead without a lawyer for him?
Not necessarily. Divorces are very emotional. The reason that some divorces end up at trial, is because one party is extremely emotional and will not compromise, even to what is reasonable. Normally in those cases, the over emotional party is going to lose whatever battle they are fighting, and the more rationale party will win. So by going to trial the rationale party will ultimately win, otherwise they would have had to give in, in order to avoid a trial.
My divorce from my ex wife was settled very amicably, however we ultimately did end up in court, several years later, before a judge over a modification to child support that she lost.
his wife wants full college paid for 4 kids and also health insurance for them to age 26. And no visitation at all for him. She is not compromising so it seems she won’t get that. From what I know once the kids hit 18 you cannot be forced to pay for anything but you can pay voluntarily .
I wouldn’t think “no visitation” would be an option, assuming he’s not a child molester or something.
sounds like she is claiming he is abusive but I don’t know if that is to her or the kids or both. I don’t know if she has evidence of that other than her word vs his.
IANAL but I believe that some divorce agreements will include a requirement to pay college tuition for kids over 18.
It depends upon a variety of factors. The state in which they live may be a determinant. Also the relative incomes of both spouses, etc. Generally, the presumption is that once the children reach majority, no further support from either parent is mandated.
The kids are teenagers, so they can decide if they want to see him, or even live with him, or at least they can where I am.
It does sound like you’re only getting his side of it.
Yes I am getting his side of it. I know they hired a retired judge to mediate and the judge told her she was making a lot of requests that were not going to be granted in court but she keeps asking for those items. Since he has no lawyer now I assume this will go badly for him unless the judge is reasonable.
IANAL - In Canada, until the kid moves out (and is considered “living at home” even if they go off to college) the spouses may have to pay toward the child’s tuition as well as child support until they finish college or 23, whichever comes first. A lady I worked with mentioned her husband was still paying for support and tuition for a daughter than was going to college - but the guy was convinced that his ex-wife - a thousand miles away - was playing him and the girl had dropped out. But basically he said it was cheaper to pay for the next year when she couldn’t re-enroll if she flunked, than to hire an investigator and a lawyer far away to take them to court.
The irony is, if your parents are NOT divorced, there is no mechanism to force them to pay for your college. Presumably the smart move for any senior would be to get their boyfriend/girlfriend to have sex with their parent, film it, and precipitate a divorce… 
I’m a little confused by what you mean by “go to trial”. I was divorced in a very amicable situation with no property settlement to even really negotiate but we had to appear before a judge in a courtroom to be granted a divorce. Do you mean cases where there is no agreement and the court has to decide who gets what?
yes by go to trial I mean no agreement and the court decides who gets what. I live in NC so maybe it’s different here but normally the lawyers just file the papers with the court rather than making the 2 people go.
Are you sure about this? I hear this all of the time from my prospective clients, but it simply is not true.
What is true, at least in my state, is that a child aged 14 and over will be able to testify as to his/her preference of custodial allocation and the judge will take that testimony along with all of the other evidence to make a decision regarding the proper custodial allocation.
If the kid saying something along the lines of he would rather stay with Mom because she lets him eat junk food and play video games all of the time, but Dad makes him do his homework and do chores, then that testimony, despite the child’s preference, will go against Mom.
Gots to be 18 before the child has full decision making authority in this regard.