Jeff Cleghorn, a partner at Kitchens, New & Cleghorn, LLC (http://www.gadivorcelitigators.com) talks about contested divorce.
Transcript
Divorce is always a difficult procedure emotionally for both the husband and the wife. Different people deal with stress differently of course. But the dissolution of a marriage is generally a tough time for our clients. A contested divorce is one where there are one or more issues that are not agreed to by the parties. Most divorces are contested at some level, and that makes sense if you think about it because the marriage is dissolved because the husband and the wife disagree over certain things. So they are typically not able to agree immediately on all of the issues that need to be resolved to finalize a divorce, and so those issues are contested if you will. They're disputed. That's where we, as domestic relations litigators, become involved. We work with our clients and work with the lawyers representing our clients' spouses to try to find solutions to these issues that are in dispute if we can. We oftentimes use mediation as an effective tool to try to find compromises and resolutions that are in our client's best interest if we can. That's a shortcut to actually having to go to court or to a trial. However, if we need to go to court, to a hearing or to a trial to advance our client's interest, then we always stand ready and willing to do that. That's part of our job as attorneys and certainly as litigators.
