Delay: A Hidden Cost of Going to Trial
Going through a divorce is emotionally challenging if not downright unpleasant. Therefore, it is not surprising that a person going through a divorce wants the case to be over as fast as possible. Unfortunately, going to trial is generally not the way to get a speedy resolution of a divorce case because so many divorce cases get delayed for some of the following reasons:
1. No matter how set in stone a trial date appears to be, at least in Superior Court in Anchorage, if an emergency children’s proceeding is filed, it trumps the divorce trial, which means then the judge assigned to the divorce case, has to reschedule for a later date.
2. Even if a trial starts on the scheduled date, it is not unusual for there to be delays in the middle of a trial because of court matters over which the trial judge does not have any control over such as emergency children’s hearings. Therefore, it is not uncommon for a case to be tried a day here and a day there over a course of several weeks and in rare cases over the course of several months.
3. Judges do not usually make a decision at the conclusion of a trial. They take the matter under advisement. It is not unusual for the judge to take four to six months before he/she issues a written decision.
4. Once the judge issues a written decision, each side has the right to file an appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court. Although this generally does not affect the finality of the judge’s decision, the appellate process can take two years. If the Alaska Supreme Court reverses the trial court’s decision, the case is usually sent back to the trial judge for further court proceedings.
Because delay is one of the risks of going to trial, settling a case through mediation or a settlement conference with a judge is certainly an attractive alternative to spending months and possibly years embroiled in divorce litigation. The day you settle you can begin to look forward to the rest of your life. Why wait?
