Divorce can be terribly expensive, because it is so often emotionally charged. Hard feelings can force litigation, when you're not willing or able to get past these feelings to settle issues in a reasonable way. The more litigation is involved, the more an attorney will charge you. But handling your matter pro se--on your own, without a lawyer--is not always cheap, either.
Legality
In America, the legal system is set up to allow you to handle almost anything yourself, including divorce. State courts will generally assist you by providing or steering you to the forms you'll need for the documents you'll have to file. But divorce encompasses much more than filing the proper documents. You must also reach an agreement regarding assets, debts, the children, support, and any other issues that may exist between you.
Considerations
There are only two ways to divide up assets, debts, and time with the children. You can let a judge decide who gets what, or you can reach a settlement agreement, with or without attorneys. If you want to hire attorneys, negotiations will take place through them. If you want to proceed without lawyers, you'll need to be dispassionate, reasonable, and ready to move forward, not focus on past insults and anger. You'll need to be able to negotiate directly with each other. If you're unable to do that, negotiations may get bogged down and you'll have to go to trial.
Advantage
Douglas Schoenberg, an attorney and accredited divorce mediator practicing in Summit, New Jersey, points out that it takes only one bullish or argumentative party to derail divorce negotiations and set you up for a long, expensive battle. That party is often an attorney, because his job is to aggressively pursue the best deal for you that he can get. If you eliminate his participation, you can also eliminate some of the adversarial process that is what ends up costing divorce litigants so much money and stress.
Disadvantages
Going it alone can be risky. It is not uncommon in pro se divorces for serious issues to be left unaddressed or wrongly addressed. This can create a legal mess that may actually be more expensive to fix than a divorce lawyer would have cost you in the first place. And if negotiations fail and you end up going to trial, a judge will expect you to be up to speed on case law and legal procedure--something that can change in family law on a year-to-year basis.
Advice
Remember that even if you don't retain an attorney, this doesn't mean you can't consult with one if you have questions or concerns. Mediation is another possibility if you're close to an agreement but need to fine-tune it, or if you agree on all but one sticky issue. Mediators are professional third parties trained to help with negotiations. They can suggest alternatives and solutions that you and your spouse might not think of on your own, says Schoenberg.
