Contested Divorce Long Island: Trial of Your Case

Trials are expensive. You can expect at least five days. Many trials can be three or four times as long. A trial involving complex financial issues may take weeks. In our experience a full day of preparation immediately prior to the commencement of the trial is required for each expected day of trial. Of course, you are required to present during the entire trial. Judges have multiple responsibilities. An ongoing trial is often interrupted for pressing and immediate issues that require the judge’s attention. There may be significant downtime.

A trial is about the presentation of evidence to support your request of the court that it make certain decisions and order certain actions. It is extraordinarily unlikely that you will have the opportunity to say all those things you want to say about your spouse. For the most part, they are not relevant to the decisions that the court must make. The only reason people have trials in divorce is that one or both of the parties is being unreasonable about something. There are no decisions that a judge will make that the two parties, with the guidance and advice to knowledgeable attorneys, cannot make on their own. For this reason the course is unsympathetic to your argument that a trial is too expensive. The Court’s view, typically, is that you came to the court because you cannot solve your own problems, and that, therefore, you cannot complain about what it takes for the court to resolve them.

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Go back to Long Island Contested Divorce: How It Works to see the full list of topics about contested divorce.