Maryland Separation Agreements
The final decision whether to reach a separation agreement in Maryland rests with you because you are the one who has to be comfortable with the terms of your Maryland Separation Agreement. As a Maryland separation agreement lawyer, I see it as my job to negotiate the best terms possible for you and then explain the consequences of the terms by explaining how they work and impact your daily life so you can make an informed decision about what terms are acceptable to you. But after understanding the consequences, it is the client’s prerogative to enter into a separation agreement or not.
With that said, one of the benefits of reaching and signing a separation agreement in Maryland, which we alluded to in Part I, is lowering your legal and attorney’s fees. Everyone has heard of the outrageous legal fees that a family member or a friend spent on their contentious divorce and/or child custody cases. In Maryland attorneys are prohibited from entering into a contingency fee agreement with clients in family law cases including divorce and custody cases. That means your family law attorney should not and cannot enter into an agreement with you that will be based on a percentage of the marital assets and/or alimony that you may receive. As a result, many separation agreement lawyers charge their clients based on an hourly fee schedule.
Obviously, if you are able to reduce the number of hours that your family law attorney works on your case then you will have lower legal fees. As an experienced separation agreement lawyer, I would be remiss if I did not mention that many cases are settled by reaching a separation agreement that is reached on the day of the trial or just a few days before the trial. Unfortunately, by then many hours of legal work were already spent by your divorce lawyer and lowering your legal fees will be limited to the time that your lawyer would have had to spend to attend the trial and for post-judgment matters. However, that could still be significant amount considering that a 4-day trial will require about 35-40 hours of court time alone, not to mention the post-trial and judgment motions and proceedings. Additionally, a Maryland separation agreement will provide you with the predictability of the outcome to assure that it will put your life back on track after your divorce.
You should also keep in mind that certain cases and certain issues require hiring an expert witness, which could come at a significant cost e.g. valuation expert, vocational expert, etc. A Maryland separation agreement will further assist you in reducing these expert costs as well, which could add up to a significant amount.
This article is a Part II of 3-part series regarding Maryland separation agreements and mutual consent divorce in Maryland. For additional information and to have full context, please read my additional articles on this subject. You can find parts I and III at
A. Shane Kamkari, Esq.
Member of Maryland Bar and Court of Appeals
family lawyers for mutual consent divorce
Maryland separation agreement lawyer