Cost of a Divorce in Arizona

So you want to know how much a divorce will cost in Arizona, huh? The answer is somewhat two-fold because the question people (you) are really asking contains two questions. The first being how much does a divorce in general cost, and the second being how much will it cost to hire a divorce lawyer.

Filing Fees with the Court

The general cost of a divorce is relatively low, and fairly standard (remember, I said “fairly”). Without hiring a lawyer, the cost of a divorce is generally only made up of the procedural-type costs. The main two costs will be the filing fee, and the response fee. When you file for divorce in Arizona you will have to file what is called a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. When you file this document with the court, you will have to pay a filing fee to start your divorce. The cost of this fee will depend on which county you live in. When filing for divorce you will file in the superior court, which is divided up in Arizona by county. Each county controls its own costs for filing and all are a little different. The filing fees generally range from $300 to $350 (roughly). The response fee, which is paid by the other spouse, is similar, but generally less. The cost is typically about $75 or so less. So, altogether, you and your spouse will pay around $500-600 in filing fees with the court just to get divorced. If you take this free online course How to File for Divorce in Arizona, you can learn more about the filing process and get a full list of each county’s filing costs, and learn more about getting those filing fees deferred or even waived.

Service Fee

Other than the filing fees, the next most likely cost for a divorce is the service fee. In Arizona, you have to use either a sheriff deputy or private process server to formally serve the divorce papers on your spouse (unless your spouse accepts service, which typically doesn’t happen). This will set you back around $50-100 depending on who you hire and how many times they have to attempt to serve your spouse.

Parenting Class and Mediation Fees

Finally, the next most likely cost in any divorce will be possible parenting and/or mediation costs. In Arizona divorces with children you will need to take a parenting class. Most people opt to do this online, while some still go to physical classes. Either way, you can expect to pay around $50 (per person) to take the class. On top of that, depending on the county court you live/file in, you may have to participate in one or more forms of mediation. For example, in Maricopa County most divorces with children are referred to a process called a Parenting Conference, which costs $300 per party.

You may not need to incur some of the above costs, but most people will at least need to pay for the filing fees. Depending on whether you have children or not, it would be wise to plan on needing somewhere around $500-750 (per person) to file for divorce in Arizona.

Cost of a Divorce Lawyer

Now, unfortunately, come the real costs of divorce: lawyers. Ugh, they’re the worst, right? I’m a lawyer and even I can say that (because it’s half true). Seriously though, lawyers can provide a very helpful service in many divorces. I won’t get into whether you should hire a lawyer or not. I cover whether you should hire a lawyer for your divorce in this blog post. Here, I’ll just go over the cost of a divorce lawyer in Arizona. Various media outlets often tout the average cost of a divorce is somewhere around $15,000 to $17,000. Having practiced law as a divorce lawyer for going on 7 years, I can say that estimate is rather accurate, generally. I will clarify that the estimate means per person, not total. So that means, on average, if both spouses hire a divorce lawyer, they will collectively spend $30,000 or more on their divorce. Ouch!

It’s important to point out here that this average cost is just that: an average. I’ve personally had divorce cases easily surpass $50,000, and even a handful that have topped $100,000, and a couple that reached north of a quarter million. Crazy, right? Well, it depends. In my higher-end cases, we were often fighting over hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars covering some complex and/or unsettled areas of law. So, it would make sense for the parties to spend tens of thousands of dollars with the hope of reaping a benefit 10-100x that amount. For the average person, myself included, these costs would be astronomical and wouldn’t make any sense. In fact, these costs, including the average cost, is why the majority of divorces in Arizona don’t have a lawyer involved on both sides, or even at all.

For us mere mortals, I’ll roughly explain where that $15,000 or so average comes from. For starters, you have to understand that your lawyer will probably cost on average around $275-300 per hour. That will buy you somewhere around 50-60 hours of your attorney’s time. Most divorces will last somewhere around 6-12 months, depending on how fast you settle (or don’t settle). When I meet most clients at my law firm, I tell them that if we go to trial you can expect the cost of trial to be around $5,000. This makes sense since you would be paying a lawyer essentially $1,000 just to be at your half-day trial (double it if you have a full day trial), and the preparation time for trial is usually at least 2 hours for every 1 hour of trial. That adds up to $3,000 just to have your attorney prepare and show up. On top of that, there are two very important things that have to also be drafted, prepared, and submitted before trial: exhibits and a pretrial statement. Depending on the complexity of your case, these things can easily take 3-10 hours. Often a paralegal will help with these tasks, but that also adds up. Long before trial happens, your lawyer will engage in sending discovery requests, responding to discovery, making settlement attempts (hopefully), and dealing with other shenanigans your spouse may engage in (or you too). Add it all up, and you can easily his $15,000 when all is said and done, or even double it if you and your spouse are particularly contentious—trust me, I’ve seen it a lot.

What About a Cheap Divorce?

At this point, you might be asking: what about those signs I see for divorce for $1,000, or for $500, or for $250? Sounds tempting about now I’m sure. Here is what you need to know about those types of offers. Those are not quotes from lawyers (if they are, run!). Those are offers likely from out-of-work paralegals or document preparers who are offering to draft up your divorce documents for a flat fee. A word of caution: paralegals and document preparers cannot practice law, cannot represent you, cannot give you legal advice, and do not fully understand divorce laws. These types of services have a purpose, but it’s important that you understand their limitations as they will not ultimately be responsible for your divorce if you use them in lieu of a a lawyer (your will be responsible).

Lastly, I’ll point out that you might have heard about lawyers asking for various retainer fees to do your divorce. Perhaps you talked to one lawyer and he wanted $3,000. Or, maybe you talked to a friend and found out she only had to pay her lawyer $1,500. This is what you need to understand about a retainer fee for divorce lawyers: they are not a flat fee. Unless a divorce lawyer specifically says in his/her representation agreement that he/she will do your whole divorce for a flat fee of X amount, you will almost undoubtedly have to pay more than the initial retainer amount. For example, almost all good attorneys will charge you an hourly rate for a divorce (unless it’s 100% uncontested, meaning you and your spouse agree on EVERYTHING). This means that whether they want $1,000 up front or $10,000 up front, you will end up paying however much time it takes them to get you through your divorce. So, don’t be hoodwinked by one lawyer’s low retainer fee request. If he’s charging $300/hour but only asking for $1,000 up front, you’ll almost for sure be paying another $1,000 again next month, and the month after, etc. The important question to ask for any lawyer is how much they charge per hour, how much they charge for skilled staff (paralegals), and how much a typical divorce would cost going all the way to trial (most attorneys won’t tell you how much your divorce will cost because it will set unrealistic expectations).

Bottom Line

I hope all of this answers your question of how much a divorce in Arizona will cost. The bottom line is it may cost a lot if you hire a lawyer, but at the very least expect to need around $500 depending on whether you have kids or not. Lawyers can provide a very great service, but not everyone can afford a lawyer. This is why I created this company, Arizona Divorce Podcast, which offers a free podcast show and divorce courses to help people who cannot afford a lawyer still have a chance to understand divorce laws and procedure so they can help themselves. A paralegal and/or document preparer cannot teach you the law. A divorce lawyer does you no good if you cannot afford to pay. Check out our courses and at least sign up for our free course on how to file for divorce in Arizona. With our money-back guarantee and free offer, there’s nothing to lose.