How To Waste All Your Money on Family Law Fees

In this video Ursula Rice presents a satirical tirade born out of the frustration of dozens of encounters with people who have approached their divorce in an unnecessarily combative manner, only to empty their own pockets into those of their lawyers.

No time to watch the video? Here’s a summary:

Hi, if you like giving lawyers money then I absolutely have the divorce tips for you.

These are divorce tips that have been compiled from twenty years of practice. I must be feeling in a bit of a mood today, because I feel that the world at large needs to know how not to run your divorce. But if you want to do it like this, fill your boots…

Tip 1

Make sure you leave the matrimonial home and then stew in a for two years or in your mum’s house or sofa surf because that’s very enjoyable and really improves your mood and really gets you, you know, match fit for the drama that is to come. Once you’ve taken your head out of your bottom, go to number two.

Tip 2

Go and see a lawyer who says, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, we’ll write some letters”. Make sure they write lots of letters. Make sure that when those letters are sent, they have lots of lovely words like ‘imperative’, ‘we insist’, ‘you must’. It is necessary for you to include lots of hyperbole and speaking in that sort of bossy tone, because when the person opens that letter they’ll say, “How very true. You were so right – my bad, I am an idiot. Allow me to make whatever moves you want me to make, right or not”.

Tip 3

By this stage you’ll realise you’re getting nowhere. At this point it’s very important that you resist mediation, or any other kind of non-court dispute resolution. Say ‘no’ to mediation. early neutral evaluation, arbitration or any round table stuff. You know – just make sure everybody’s really, really clear that you’d much rather that the lawyers have the money. That bit is important, okay?

Tip 4

Keep writing letters, because that’s going very well.

Tip 5

You’ll find that the other party might get a bit eggy about this and actually decide that it’s time to issue court proceedings. Now, that’s unfortunate, but don’t worry, because at this point, what you need do is ignore everything. There are months and months and months of time that the court will give you to prepare those papers. So it’s very important that you don’t do that.

Tip 6

Of course, what you should do is prepare the papers the night before the first FDR appointment, whenever it might be. Usually you do your best work when you do it the night before, ideally after a long day’s work.

Tip 7

Do it drunk, because that really puts the sprinkles on top.

Tip 8

Make sure you go to court the next day with your shabby homework that looks like a cat’s sat on it. That will make people be really pleased to see you and particularly impressed with your work. Usually the judge will think it’s fine, and definitely won’t make a costs order against you if the hearing is ineffective.

Tip 9

The next stage is very much to not seek support from any sensible lawyer, good friend, McKenzie friend, or someone who you feel takes that balanced view of things. And if you must seek support, because ideally, remember, having started this process in the basement, your own internal narrative and morale will be rock bottom at this point. But if you must seek support, I really recommend that you do that down at the pub, because that’s where so many of our great British legal advisors spend hours of every day with their dogs. I mean, that’s kind of an upside.

Tip 10

And then finally, get all the way to a final hearing and don’t file any evidence, because judges really do enjoy a whole day, maybe even two days, of absolute evidence roulette. They really do like that a lot.

So those are my 10 tips. If you follow them, we will get rich and you will get poor, and you’ll have no friends by the end of it.

But if you don’t want to do that, maybe come and see us.