Over the course of your divorce, you may be tempted to throw in the towel and give up. You may also be tempted to fight to your last breath. Either way, you may end up making the eventual outcome of your divorce case worse than it need be.
Should you settle your case? If so, when and how should you settle your case?
First, and to be clear, giving up and settling your case are not the same thing. Going to trial may be the only way for you to hope to get the outcome that you want. Remember, however, that the judge may not (and likely will not) see all things exactly the way that you and your lawyer do. Trial could result in an outcome that is worse than what you were offered by way of settlement.
Sometimes the words “settling,” “settling,” and “settlement” connote “surrender” or “acquiescence” or “capitulation” or even “complacency”. And a bad settlement may be the result of simply giving up, but settling your divorce case doesn’t mean just giving up. Sometimes, a settlement is preferable to keeping the fight going. Sometimes settlement is less costly than continuing to fight. Sometimes a settlement means putting your limited time, effort, and money to better use than continuing litigation.
If you and your spouse can come to a mutually acceptable agreement on the terms of your divorce without the need for a trial, why would you want to go to trial?
If you reach a settlement agreement, the terms of the agreement are reduced to writing and dated and signed by you and your spouse. The settlement agreement can resolve all of the disputed issues in your case, or you may agree to resolve some issues by agreement and reserve other issues for trial. This settlement agreement is then submitted to the court and if the court finds that it comports with the law and is equitable, the court will accept the settlement agreement and incorporate its terms into the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and also incorporate its terms into the Decree of Divorce.
You owe it to yourself to weigh your odds of success at trial against the time, effort, and financial cost of what it takes to get to trial and to prevail at trial. It’s incredibly expensive. Can you really not find any issues that you could settle out of court or are you just being stubborn, greedy, irrational, and/or vindictive?
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277
