Either you’ve already filed or you’re still considering divorce. But once the decision is made, what happens?
Consultation
First you need to hire the right attorney. Understand that the state of Tennessee is permeated with laws about the details of divorce procedures, making it difficult to interpret on your own. Consulting an experience professional in the field of family law is paramount.
The Complaint
The divorce process begins when one spouse files a Complaint for Divorce. This document lays out your reasons for filing, details about the marriage, and asks the court for specific remedies like alimony, parenting time and attorney fees. Once the Complaint is filed, the Court Clerk will complete a Summons document. Both the Complaint and the Summons will then be presented to the spouse. Once ready, the spouse presented with the Complaint and Summons can file an Answer and a Counter Complaint.
One thing to note: Once the filing for a Complaint for Divorce is processed, both spouses are held accountable by the courts. This means neither of you are allowed to sell or transfer assets, which can result in incarceration and being placed in contempt of court.
Discovery
This is the stage in the process where the parties ask for and exchange information that will help the lawyers determine how much assets are worth, how much debt the parties have, what sort of behavior (such as adultery) the parties have engaged in, and what type of parent the parties have been and will be. The lawyers send requests for production of documents as well as interrogatories, which are questions that help the attorneys gather the information they need to develop a settlement proposal or strategy for trial.
Video Transcript
Discovery is something that always seems
very intimidating to my clients and I’m
going to tell you it was even
intimidating to me when I had to do it
and I’m a divorce lawyer but what it
means is you’re going to pull together a
lot of information that explains to the
lawyer on the other side who’s
representing your spouse what your
financial situation looks like what your
health looks like what you think your
other SP spouse does right or wrong and
and your spouse is going to be providing
that same information to your attorney
this way the attorneys get the big
picture how many cars do you have how
many houses do you have how many bank
accounts are out there we need to know
what could be out there financially but
we also want to know other things who
have you been talking to on Facebook
what uh possible relationships you
already have going on in the middle of a
marriage these are all questions that
get asked in Discovery Discovery is
expensive and it is a difficult process
for a lot of people they just really
hate having to sort of bear their soul
to somebody and once the written
Discovery part is done we go further
into depositions depositions are also
part of Discovery where the lawyer gets
to ask you questions about the answers
you’ve given and a lot of people don’t
like that either I will just say that if
you can answer very very truthfully in
your written Discovery we call them
interrogatories and requests for
production of documents if you can be
very truthful from the start and that’s
what you ought to be in your divorce
then everyone has a good trust factor
and can come up with this is what the
marital estate looks like we don’t have
to worry about all the fault that’s out
there and digging deep into a lot of
ugly things if we can all just get to
some numbers that make sense for
everybody and a parenting plan if you’ve
got kids that make sense so Discovery
can be cut short of depositions as long
as the lawyers feel like everything’s
been put out there and that it’s
everyone’s working on an honest and even
playing field
Other types of discovery include subpoenas, depositions and requests for admissions. Sometimes the parties agree to exchange information informally, although this does not work in every case, as informal discovery is not under oath. When discovery is exchanged “under oath”, the party swears to the accuracy of the information and can be held in contempt of court for perjury if it turns out the party was lying about that information. Occasionally, a business valuation is necessary when a party owns part or all of a business and the value of that business needs to be determined.
Settlement Negotiation
After the parties and their attorneys have developed a thorough understanding of the assets, liabilities and issues in the case, negotiating a settlement can be the best strategy to preserve assets and conclude the litigation quickly and discreetly without the expense and public exposure of trial. Sometimes the lawyers can negotiate a settlement between themselves. In more complex cases, or cases where the parties have widely differing views of what settlement should look like, a mediator can help to resolve the issues. Mediation involves hiring a mediator who works with both parties to reach a settlement. The mediation process typically takes up to a day, but sometimes multiple mediations are required to bring the parties to an agreement. Issues to be resolved in mediation include both the financial settlement and parenting plan, if the parties have minor children.
Video Transcript
Mediation is critical to resolving
divorce in my opinion uh we try probably
10% of our divorce cases every case in
my state has to go to mediation before
it can go to trial and mediation has
turned out to be a tool that attorneys
rely on to get their clients either to a
settlement or to an understanding of
what all the issues are it really
distills the uh the issues and lets
everybody see what their strengths and
weaknesses of their case are the goal of
mediation obviously is to settle the
case and generally when both sides can
see their strengths and weaknesses and
when you have a real experienced
mediator who can come in and say look
this just makes sense or let’s get
creative here this means a lot to you
this means a lot to him let’s try to put
those together uh and come up with a
solution it’s so much better to do it
yourself than to ask a judge who doesn’t
know you is going to spend just maybe a
week looking at your case to to make
those decisions when you and your spouse
can make them together with the help of
your lawyers and an experienced mediator
While mediation involves the expense of hiring a mediator, it is financially preferable to the expense of trial.
Video Transcript
Clients like to ask me when they first
hire me how much is this going to cost
of course I cannot tell you how much
it’s going to cost because everyone’s
divorce is different but what I can tell
you is a few good ways to lower your
costs and the primary way is to email
your lawyer phone calls are very
expensive phone calls generally for me
with my clients involve my clients
telling me a lot of information over a
long period of time because they’re
emoting and that’s important to them and
sometimes you can’t beat a phone call
but if you can give me that same
information in a little bit more of a
streamlined email and then I can respond
to you in an email well that might take
10 minutes but a phone call typically is
30 so to me email it almost saved the
divorce practice from surely going
overboard with the the way our fees were
running because now the clients have
such a quick way to access their lawyer
and get a quick response without it
being super expensive and also without
having to set up a conference call um
you know get on the calendar another way
we like to do it is zoom zoom has
changed everything ever since covid so a
a quick Zoom hearing uh between us if if
I can just hop on the the video and you
can hop on your video and we can talk
real quickly but we really see eye to
eye just like we met nobody’s having to
drive to anybody’s Office Space nobody’s
having to wait in a conference room we
just get it done and so I feel like Zoom
also changed the legal landscape uh for
the better for the clients
Trial
When parties cannot reach a settlement, the attorneys prepare for a trial of the issues. The trial judge hears the evidence, which includes testimony from the parties, and sometimes financial, mental health, and other professionals who help the judge understand the financial picture and the family dynamic. The judge will rule on the division of property, alimony, and child support as well as determine a parenting plan if minor children are involved. In Tennessee, the judge has jurisdiction over the children and the ability to modify the parenting plan until the children turn 18.
Video Transcript
When my clients are going through a high
conflict divorce and generally the
reason divorces get into a high conflict
situation is emotions arise over the
children it is so so important to keep
your
Communications a in writing but B clean
and what I try to explain to my clients
is assume that every single thing you
say and
do in the presence of your spouse or to
your spouse is going to be seen by a
judge what we see now especially in our
these high and conflict adversarial um
very emotional histrionic sometimes uh
divorce
situations is that the partners are uh
they are videoing each other they are
100% saving every text they are writing
texts to antagonize or to draw out
negative commentary from the other side
there’s a lot of manipulation that’s
going on and people were so used to in
our society sending off a quick text uh
shooting a quick email uh and we do it
without thinking and without realizing
that our tone sounds horrible if it were
to be read by someone else our choice of
words is so unkind there are actually
programs that can help clients when they
are writing a text uh to somebody that
will take into account all the language
and the tone and then send back almost
you know how AI can rewrite something
for you they can send it back and say do
it in a better tone I try very hard to
make sure that my clients understand
what they’re saying texting emailing is
never going to be a secret and that goes
for photos too I mean don’t take
pictures you don’t want the judge to see
don’t write things you don’t want the
judge to see always think as if your
grandmother is going to read and look at
everything that you communicate and and
govern yourself accordingly