More complex divorces also more costly

      Shopping for a divorce could be as simple as shopping for a car.
      If both spouses agree on everything, they could get on the road for $1,000. But if either insists on every legal accessory known to man - or gets talked into them by a car salesmanlike lawyer - they could spend $200,000.
      A lot of people who make the more expensive choice can't really afford it.
      "An average charge for a Family Court lawyer is $200 an hour," said Family Court Judge Terrance Marren. "I am talking about people who concentrate in this area and will undertake the complex aspects if necessary. And most of those tell me they won't take a divorce case for less than a $5,000 retainer.
      "There are people who swim in the shallow end of the pool, who say they will do an uncontested divorce for $500, but that is going to change pretty quick if it gets the least bit complicated."
      Marren estimates that 70 percent of all divorces in Family Court are truly uncontested, or nearly so, and can be concluded in 90 days for less than $1,000 on each side. "About 70 percent of the rest will be concluded in a year and probably won't exceed $5,000 a side.
      "But the rest are killing us."
      Marren's estimates are seat-of-the-pants figures based on experience, but attorneys gave similar estimates. Nobody has firmer data on current prices of divorce in Las Vegas, but in 1993 the Nevada State Bar polled members about their fees, and what they had billed in actual cases.
      Clark County lawyers had charged an average of $8,523 for representing either party from start to finish in "contested divorces where a business or professional spouse is involved," the survey found. At that time, the survey revealed, Las Vegas attorneys charged $155 an hour for divorce work. If today's average fee is $200 an hour, as Marren thinks, that divorce now would cost nearly $11,000 on each side.
      They averaged $4,815 for contested divorces of more typical spouses in long-term marriages, and $3,739 for the average divorce with children. At today's common $200-an-hour fee, those figures would be about $6,200 and $4,800.
      Shirley La Spina paid $23,000 for a divorce, despite acting as her own lawyer much of the time, and lawyers attempted to charge her another $21,000, which she contested and did not pay. Coupled with property decisions that she says were badly mishandled by the court, the fees drove her into bankruptcy. Other ex-wives have claimed lawyers' fees pushed toward the $100,000 mark for protracted cases.
      It's an axiom of family law that both parties in a contested divorce believe they have been screwed. Yet in four years of deciding thousands of divorce cases, the court's six judges have been appealed fewer than 50 times each.
      That statistic says as much about the cost of litigation as about the quality of the court's decisions, said Marshal Willick, an attorney who concentrates on family law.
      "The cold-blooded truth is that almost nobody can afford the cost of an appeal," said Willick. "I had one case that cost probably $75,000 at the trial level and probably $25,000 at the appeal level."
      Judges say practicing lawyers are partly to blame for the high costs of litigation, but lawyers note judges are better positioned to do something about it.
      "In this jurisdiction we are in love with oral arguments," Marren said. "Out of five days in court, the judges give two to this alone. And it's all issues like a collection of arrearage on child support. The wife says, 'Here's my payment schedule and here's what he owes.' And he says 'Yes, I owe it, but here's why I didn't pay it.' You always have documentation from both sides, yet we sit there at least 15 minutes listening to lawyers repeat the same information.
      "By the time you figure preparation and for his case to be called, each lawyer is going to bill at least an hour. So we have carved $400 out of these people to argue a motion that we didn't need to argue."
      In 1994, Marren tried to fix that problem, proposing to adopt a rule, used already in Reno, which limits oral arguments to custody and visitation matters. "Those two are situations where you want to have the parents personally present and may want to hear from them," Marren explained.
      "I set a meeting of the bar in my courtroom and invited attorneys to comment. The courtroom was packed. And out of that entire courtroom, Roger Wirth and about two other people stood up for what I thought was a reasonable idea.
      "The rest of the room seemed to side with a very respected lawyer who stood up and said, 'We like it the way it is. ... Not only do we not support this, but if you get this on, we will find opponents for you in the next election.' "
      Marren continued, "I carried that back to my colleagues on the Family Court and we quickly lost the urge to change that."
      Lawyers counter that they have proposed similar time-saving procedures, but the judges have been too insistent on running their individual courts as they like to agree on a common practice.
      One lawyer, who asked not to be named, could think of at least two reasons that lawyers are reluctant to support a rule that oral arguments would be waived.
      "Frankly, if you are an attorney who is a little lazy, or tends to procrastinate, or not a clear writer, an oral argument lets you shuck and jive a little bit in court. You can be charming and maybe make a point you forgot to make in the papers, or didn't make very well.
      "And on the other side, to really believe in waiving oral argument, you have to really believe the judge is going to read your papers every time and remember what he read."
      Some judges are suspected of not doing that every time.
      Attorney Lynn Shoen likes the rule adopted by Judge Robert Gaston in his own department. "He pledged that he will read your paperwork, and each side gets five minutes to argue its side. It sounds harsh, but the truth is it has worked."
      Marren was unwilling to attribute the lawyers' resistance to greed. "It is true they have an economic incentive to keep it the way it is, but these people voluntarily work in a field where lawyers collect the smallest percentage of what is actually owed them of all fields of law. They also do a great deal of work for which they don't even try to charge people."
      Shoen, chairwoman of the Clark County Pro Bono project, confirmed that. "The majority of the pro bono work is Family Court, so most of it gets dumped on family practitioners."
      Through the pro bono project, family lawyers each year do about $1 million worth of work for clients who can't afford to pay them.
      In the attempt to keep costs down, more and more litigants of the divorce court are representing themselves. This is called pro per or proper person. "Pro per cases have begun taking a disproportionate amount of our time in court," said Chuck Short, administrator for District Court.
      Many pro per litigants also come to court poorly prepared, inappropriately dressed, and equipped with the wrong documentation. But few resources exist to help them.
      Power Justice Inc. and Equal Rights For Divorced Fathers both offer educational services, but neither group recommended pro per representation as a good way to save money.
      "They say a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client," one attorney said. "And it goes double if the lawyer isn't even a lawyer."