Divorce Connecticut-Style

by Hartford Advocate

I got divorced in 1988 for less than $500. Even 20 years ago, that was cheap. My soon-to-be-ex-wife, a student at the University of Montana School of Law, enlisted a friend in Legal Services to draft the divorce petition, which I signed without reading, and without stepping into a courtroom.

We had a three-year-old daughter, who we agreed would stay with me in the house she had grown up in to minimize the trauma. But even so, she endured endless bus trips to Helena from Missoula for weekend visits, years of repetitious drives to a wind-blown wide spot in the road for the hand-off, and some disorienting late-night pick-ups on snowy winter nights.

And that's about as good as divorce gets. If my ex-wife and I had decided to fight it out, as too many couples still do in Connecticut, we would have drained what little financial resources we had, and then some, and made our daughter's life a hell along with our own.

In Connecticut, divorces like mine are far from the norm. Instead, many are protracted, bitter and incredibly expensive, with children often caught in the crossfire. But a new trend toward mediated outcomes may calm the marital waters.

John Clapp, a professor in the business school at the University of Connecticut and a divorced father of two boys, analyzed more than 17,000 divorce cases in the state during 2003-2004. He found that nearly half dragged on for more than a year, and that 20 percent were in the system for more than five years.

"The data show that Connecticut divorces are typically drawn out," says Clapp, who also found that when a divorce is granted here, about 40 percent take a year to get a final decree. Nearly a quarter of the unsealed cases involve couples who had been granted a divorce, but were back in court fighting over something related to it.

And you know what they say: Time is money. Divorcing couples in Connecticut regularly rack up bank-busting legal bills that can put the lesser earning party—and there often is an economic imbalance between warring couples—into bankruptcy. Good Connecticut divorce attorneys command $350 to $400 an hour, says Carolyn Kaas, an associate professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Law and co-director of the Center on Dispute Resolution. Some divorce attorneys charge as much as $650 an hour.

"I want to throw up. It sounds greedy, but they're typically handling multimillion-dollar cases," said Kaas of the highest-paid lawyers. "I'm for doing everything in our power to change the way people get divorced."

The most notorious Connecticut divorce case in recent memory is last year's settlement involving the extremely wealthy Peter Tauck of Westport (who made his money in the travel industry), his ex-wife Nancy and their four children.

The trial went on for 86 days and cost the Taucks an estimated $13 million, smashing the previous Connecticut record of 37 days and probably setting a national record.

"After the trial phase ended on June 25, over 40 motions were filed, and the judge told lawyers for both sides: 'I can't write a decision until you all stop filing motions,'" recounted Clapp in an unpublished op-ed piece.