How To Fund Divorce

This country has hardly come out of the economic recession when the Coalition Government announced major public spending cuts in October 2010; these will impact upon the availability of public funding (or legal aid) for family law cases in the future.

One thing some people are not aware of is that public funding is not “free”; whatever legal costs the Legal Services Commission pays to a client’s solicitor at the end of the case will be recovered from the client eventually.

For those people who do not qualify for public funding because they earn too much or have assets above a certain threshold, they will have to fund their cases privately on a "pay as you go" basis.

However, in many cases, there simply isn't enough liquid assets like cash or shares which can be sold to pay the legal fees. As a result, many people feel they are trapped, unable to pay legal fees and cannot see a way forward.

There are actually various ways to fund a divorce case - the obvious one would be to obtain a loan from friends and family, or from a commercial lender. Many banks do lend money for payment of legal costs but these loans could carry quite a high rate of interest, or the borrower has to surrender property as security.

What if you do not qualify for such a loan or public funding? Under certain circumstances, it is possible to ask the court for an order called “maintenance pending suit”, this means the other party will be ordered to pay regular sums of money to the client to cover essential living expenses and payment of legal fees. Of course, it may not be possible to get such an order if the other party does not have enough disposable cash to satisfy such an order.

A further alternative would be for the client to enter into an agreement with the solicitor under which the client assigns to the solicitor a portion of his or her eventual financial settlement to cover the solicitor's fees and any disbursements like court fees & barristers fees etc. Obviously, the solicitor will only get paid at the end of the case. This type of deed of assignment is often referred to as a “Sears Tooth assignment”.

As you can see, there are various ways to fund a family law case and if you are in any doubt whether you might be able to afford legal fees, you should contact us and we will arrange a no obligation meeting to discuss the matter with you.

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