Just got notified by my lawyer that opposing counsel is trying to schedule mediation.

My STBX has basically changed her mind on the terms of the settlement we've been working on and my lawyers have been doing a complete shit job at actually drafting the settlement. This means I've eaten about 13.5k in legal fees between filing the divorce complain, 2 bad settlement drafts and dealing with a request for discovery.

I'm trying to figure out what my best worst option is of the following:

A) trash the settlement and go straight to mediation with current lawyer. I hear horror stories about mediation so I'm a bit anxious about this option and the mediation fees will probably eat something like 4k I'm guessing

B) same as above but get a new lawyer

C) see if I can pin my wife on settlement terms and try to proceed with the settlement prior to the mediation date which is probably in about month

How bad is my lawyer?

  • Well they started work on the first draft without enough information and didn't tell me

  • once they did have enough information, the draft they put together was garbage. They got wrong that the house was bought before the marriage and who was supposed to buy out who. They didn't include our bank accounts in the settlement. They got the debt values wrong. They got completely missed out on the fact that my STBX was originally willing to let me live in the house for 12 months before the buyout to save money

So I figure if I'm keeping these guys I need to be so explicit that I have to draft out the settlement as best as I can just so they don't miss details and God knows what they would come to mediation with. The only reason I've been keeping them is that I suspect it would be more for another lawyer to draft the settlement from scratch. If my bank account wasn't already suffering then it wouldn't even be a question about switching.