Divorce Methods in Florida
Process
Collaborative divorce is when a couple agrees to figure out the terms of their divorce outside of court with the assistance of a collaborative team. Each spouse retains a collaboratively-trained attorney who helps them navigate through the process, advises them, and drafts the legal documents that formalize the divorce terms. Often additional professionals are brought into the process: a mental health professional who helps facilitate communication and develop a parenting plan, and a financial professional who gathers the family’s financial information and assists with option-building.
Participation agreement
Both spouses and every team member is required to sign a collaborative participation agreement in order to engage formally into the collaborative process. This agreement outlines the various rules and expectations for the team and the process, including financial transparency, disqualification, litigation, and other issues.
When it’s a good fit
While collaborative divorce can work for all families, it is particularly helpful when children’s issues need to be navigated or when there are difficult conversations that need to be navigated. Similarly, divorces from long-term marriages are aided by the collaborative process’s flexibility and sensitivity. There is a misconception that a divorcing couple must be wonderful communicators in order to meaningfully engage in the collaborative process; to the contrary, collaborative divorce helps to shore up communication issues where couples would otherwise not be able to successfully negotiate the terms of their divorce.
Divorce doesn’t have to be combative.
Schedule a consultation to learn how collaboration can help.
Florida mediation requirements
Many counties in Florida, including Central Florida, require the parties to attend mediation before they can proceed to a trial, and in many instances, before the court will permit a hearing on any issue, including temporary matters.
Voluntary vs. court-ordered
In a divorce, the parties can always voluntarily engage the services of a mediator and attempt to resolve their issues through the mediation process. This can be before the divorce has been formally started with the filing of a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage (pre-suit mediation) or it can be while the divorce is legally pending. Usually, the court will not set a matter for hearing or trial, without the parties having attended mediation, in which case the court may order the parties to attend mediation directly.
Benefits
Mediation can provide the divorcing couple with the opportunity to resolve their divorce by negotiating the terms with the aid of a mediator, who does not provide legal advice or make decisions for anyone, but instead helps to foster negotiations. Mediation lets couples make decisions about the terms of their divorce, instead of a judge, who has very limited information about each family’s history and circumstances and manages a voluminous caseload. Mediation can also allow a couple to resolve their divorce much faster than if they waited for a trial before a judge.
What can mediation do for you?
Find out why many choose mediation over court.
Contested vs. Uncontested by legal definition
An uncontested divorce is when both parties agree to all of the terms of their divorce before initiating the process legally. This means they have agreed how all of their finances are going to be handled, including all marital assets and liabilities, as well as how they are going to co-parent any children they may have, which means deciding the time-sharing schedule along with many other issues that go along with co-parenting.
A contested divorce is the traditional method of resolving a divorce through litigation. When the parties cannot agree on the terms of their divorce, informally or through an alternative dispute resolution process like collaborative divorce or mediation, then the only option left is a litigation, or contested, divorce. It is “contested” not because the parties disagree about whether to divorce, but because the parties cannot agree as to all of the terms of the divorce. It is important to note that if a couple has agreed on almost every term but a few lingering issues remain unresolved, that is a contested divorce.
Requirements
For a couple to obtain an uncontested divorce, they will need to have some conversations between each other to get on the same page. This is often referred to as a “kitchen table divorce,” because the idea is for a couple to sit down at the proverbial kitchen table and hash out the terms of the divorce, i.e., how to raise their children, who is taking what assets and who is responsible for what debts, typically before an attorney is engaged by either spouse.
Timeline
For an uncontested divorce, the majority of the timeline is typically taken up by the informal negotiations and conversations between the divorcing spouses. It is usually not helpful to rush that process. Once the couple reaches an agreement as to all of the terms of their divorce, it should not take much time for the attorney to memorialize all of these terms in the form of a Marital Settlement Agreement and Parenting Plan (if children as involved). However, it is not uncommon for the parties to think they’ve resolved all of the issues, only for it to become clear during the drafting process that lingering issues remain, which requires additional time to follow up and seek clarification by the attorney.
Pros and cons
The biggest pro of an uncontested divorce is that it represents the cheapest divorce option. The attorney time is typically very limited, so the legal fees can be kept low. It also ensures that both divorcing spouses can determine what they believe is an equitable resolution to their divorce without being inflamed by litigation tactics and fear-mongering attorneys.
One of the cons of an uncontested divorce is often couples simply do not have the tools or the emotional bandwidth to sit down together and determine how they are going to resolve their divorce. Often, a couple can do that for many of the issues but cannot reach an agreement for everything. And finally, a couple often will not understand what issues they need to resolve in order to get divorced.
Litigated Divorce
When it becomes necessary
A litigated divorce is sometimes unavoidable in Florida. If one party refuses to engage in another method of divorce, such as a collaborative divorce, an uncontested divorce, or pre-suit mediation, then the only option left is a litigation divorce, in which they are compelled via a summons to engage with the divorce. Additionally, when one spouse refuses to negotiate in good faith or when all other dispute resolution options have been exhausted, a litigated divorce remains the final option. And finally, when there is interpersonal violence, child abuse or neglect, or addiction issues, litigation is often the only means to navigate a divorce safely.
How litigation works in Florida
A litigated divorce starts officially by one party filing a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage and having it served, along with a summons, upon their spouse via a process server. The served spouse then has 20 days to file an Answer or other responsive pleading to the Petition. At that point, the parties are engaged in a litigated divorce, with various court deadlines and procedures that kick in (such as mandatory financial disclosure). If the parties cannot at some point during the litigation reach a resolution of the matter, the only other method to resolve the divorce is through a trial before a judge.
Trial process
As one judge noted recently at a conference, “A trial is not a two-way conversation.” At trial, both sides will present evidence regarding whatever unresolved issues remain. The court will hear limited evidence and testimony and make a final decision after the trial. At a divorce trial, the parties will not receive “justice,” but instead a determination of the remaining issues.
Appeals and costs
The cost of litigation is typically extremely high, in particular if the matter goes all the way to a trial. It is not uncommon for a litigation divorce that goes to trial to cost $20,000 or more per party. In addition, every party is entitled to appeal the court’s final decision to an appellate court, which can itself represent another massive expense, to either prosecute or defend, and the matter could then be sent back to the trial court to resolve additional issues, which add more costs. This is all to say that a litigation divorce can sometimes seem like a “runaway train,” and the costs will reflect that.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Divorce Method Overview (JUST an estimate and ballpark) | |||||
| Cost | Timeframe | Privacy | Emotional Impact | Court Involvement | |
| Collaborative | Moderate to High | 3-6 months, sometimes more. | The most privacy. The smallest number of documents are filed with the court. | The best chance of reducing the emotional impact because the space is created to have emotional conversations during the process. | Minimal. Few documents are filed and the court signs a simple Final Judgment. |
| Mediation | Low to Moderate | 2-4 months, sometimes more. | Typically, all of a couple’s divorce documents are filed in court. | Often emotional issues are not brought into mediation, so the emotional impact can still feel daunting. | Minimal. While more documents are filed than in a collaborative divorce, the only court involvement is the signing of the Final Judgment. |
| Uncontested | Low | 1-3 months depending on how long the negotiations take | Typically, all of a couple’s divorce documents are filed in court. | Depending on the parties’ communication styles, this can sometimes lead to a less damaging emotional impact. | Minimal. While more documents are filed than in a collaborative divorce, the only court involvement is the signing of the Final Judgment. |
| Litigation | High | 6 months to 2+ years | Everything is filed in court in a litigation divorce, and some parties use it as an opportunity to air their “dirty laundry” for the public to see. | Typically the emotional impact for a litigated divorce will be the heaviest, due to the cost, lack of control, and feeling unheard. | In a litigation divorce, court involvement can be very high, depending on how much the couple needs a judge to resolve. If going to a trial, court involvement is immense. |
Cost
While it is impossible to state how much any type of divorce will end up costing when all is said and done, the rule of thumb is that the more attorney and court involvement that is required, the more costly the process will be.
Timeframe
In a collaborative, mediation, or uncontested divorce, the divorcing spouses have the most control over the timeframe. However, when a couple is relying on the court’s calendar and efficiency in hearing matters and issuing final judgments, the timeframe can get out of hand fast.
Privacy
With a couple very discrete exceptions, divorce records are public as a matter of law in Florida. This means anything that is filed with the court as a part of a divorce is accessible to the public. The collaborative divorce process provides the best guarantees of privacy because the settlement agreement is typically not filed with the court, unlike with the other methods of divorce.
Emotional impact
All divorces have an emotional impact. Typically, the more control over the process and the better the communication between a divorcing couple, the better the emotional impact will be. A collaborative divorce often uses the services of a family therapist to help navigate the divorce process, which can help with the emotional impact.
Court involvement
For any divorce to be official and final, regardless of the method chosen to get there, a judge must sign off on a Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage. For a collaborative, mediation, and uncontested divorce, the court involvement is typically kept at that. For a litigation divorce, whenever the parties cannot agree on an issue and negotiation fails, the judge is left to make decisions for the parties, which only increases court involvement.
Florida Law and Divorce Eligibility
No-fault divorce: What “irretrievably broken” means
Irretrievably broken is the legal requirement (aside from mental incapacity) for obtaining a divorce in Florida. While the term is not defined in the Florida Statutes, it is understood to mean that deeply fundamental differences have arisen in a marriage that one or both spouses believe cannot be resolved. Functionally, the term is not typically explored by the court in a divorce proceeding and it is taken as a given that the marriage is “irretrievably broken” if the proper language is included in a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
Residency requirements
In order to seek a divorce in Florida, one must have been a Florida resident for at least 6 months. This is partly to avoid “forum shopping” where a party may seek a divorce in a state with more favorable laws for the position they are taking.
Legal process overview
In order to obtain a divorce, the parties must enter into a marital settlement agreement that resolves all of the issues of the marriage and have the court enter a Final Judgment, or the parties must ask the court to resolve their divorce through a trial and then enter a Final Judgment.
FAQs
What is the easiest divorce in Florida?
How to prove marriage is irretrievably broken?
This is no longer something the court will typically scrutinize, and if it does, a simple statement as to the reason for seeking the divorce will suffice (ex.: “I don’t love him anymore,” “She cheated on me,” etc.).
