September 23, 2025 • 12 mins
On this episode of Family Law Talk, Kirk Stange discusses that in divorce cases, it often doesn’t matter which attorney drafts the settlement paperwork as long as the terms are clear, but efficiency can be affected. One lawyer preparing everything may cost more for their client, yet speeds the process, while splitting drafting duties can cause delays that risk complications.
This episode is based on our blog on Family Law Headquarters titled: Who should draft the settlement paperwork?
To learn more or to schedule a consultation with the Oklahoma City divorce lawyers at Stange Law Firm, call 855-805-0595 or email info@stangelawfirm.com.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-law-talk--6410781/support.
This episode is based on our blog on Family Law Headquarters titled: Who should draft the settlement paperwork?
To learn more or to schedule a consultation with the Oklahoma City divorce lawyers at Stange Law Firm, call 855-805-0595 or email info@stangelawfirm.com.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-law-talk--6410781/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Family Law Talk. Familylaw Talk presented by Kirk
Stangy of Stangy Law Firm PC. Stangy Law Firm is
a multi state family law firm. Now here's your host,
Kirk Stangy.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to Family Law Talk. We have an interesting topic today.
The topic is who prepares the settlement paperwork? And this
episode today is based on an article on our blog
Familylawheadquarters dot com dated September eighth, twenty twenty five, and
the title of that article is who should draft the
settlement paperwork? So as a follow up to the episode today,
(00:41):
going over to Familawheadquarters dot com and read this blog
article for more information. But let's go ahead and jump
on into the topic at hand. Most individuals who are
going through divorceert family law matter would like to settle
their case. I mean, that's just the reality. Very few
people want a long contested case where the case costs
(01:01):
a lot of money and takes a bunch of time.
I mean, nobody really wants that. Of course, the issue
is the devil's in the details, and once you get
into the details, lots of parties disagree on the substantive
issues in the case, and that disagreement then leads to
a lot of cases being very hard to settle. All right,
but let's take a situation where the case has actually settled.
(01:24):
The parties have an agreement on everything, which is a
requirement in terms of all the relevant issues. The parties
have to agree. Okay, So let's take a situation where
the parties actually agree. And this could have taken place
many different ways based on the case. In some cases,
the parties just agree out of the gates. From my
experience as a lawyer, this is really pretty rare. Most
(01:46):
parties want this to be the case, but rarely is
it the case. But in some situations this can actually happen.
So take a case with the parties agree in the
terms of a divorce right out of the gates. In
other cases it might require settlement offers, going back and
forth between the attorneys who are dealing with offers and counteroffers.
And then let's take a situation where the parties eventually
(02:10):
reach an agreement. In other cases, parties have to go
to mediation and they work with a mediator, and then
at mediation, the hope is that they can come up
with a resolution or a compromise in order to settle
their case. And I've seen countless cases, I should say,
and this is sort of the majority, if you will,
which is the parties either settle in court, like on
(02:31):
the courthouse steps, or maybe they're in court on a
settlement conference or a pre trial conference, and the judge
gives some recommendations for settlement. And let's say the parties
settle in this kind of scenario. Okay, Well, no matter
how this takes place. When there's a settlement, then the
issue is who's going to draft the settlement paperwork? And
I think for a lot of parties this seems immaterial.
(02:53):
Most would think this isn't a big deal, But it
can actually turn into a bigger deal than most people
can actually realize. All right, so this can take place
quite a bit different in a lot of cases. But
what I see quite a bit, and have seen this
throughout my career, is the parties divide ups drafting the paperwork.
(03:14):
So in other words, the lawyers for the husband and
the lawyers for wife all draft different portions of the
settlement paperwork and then they compile this together. All right.
In some cases, the guardian at lighter might even get
involved in terms of drafting the parenting plan, and then
the party's lawyers draft the other portions of the paperwork.
Of course, this sort of begs the question, why is
there so much settlement paperwork that needs to be put
(03:37):
together in order to resolve a case? And I understand
why a lot of people would think that, but the
truth is in terms of the legal requirement, So there's
a lot of stuff that has to be put together
in order to settle a case. So take a divorce,
for example, there's going to be a judgment form or
a divorce decree. And then if there's property and debt
that has to be divided, there has to be a
(03:59):
marital selling and separation agreement. And this can be tedious
and ardulous because parties have to list all their property,
all their debts. You've got to have last four digits
of account numbers in the settlement paperwork. If there's real estate,
you've got to have the real estate description, and if
there's vehicles, you got to have the vehicle identification numbers
(04:20):
and various other things. So the marital settlement separation agreement
can involve a lot of work. And then we talked
about this before, but where there's kids, then there has
to be what's called a parented plan or custy schedule
put together all right, and this has to denote who
gets the kids when in terms of each day of
the week, and then you're dealing with holidays, you're dealing
(04:43):
with summer visitation in various other terms as well, in
terms of you know, how decisions are made and if
the parties can't agree, do they go to mediation, do
they go to arbitration, do they have a parent coordinator
or whatnot? And so all of that has to be
in the parenting planter cussing schedule, and that can be
(05:03):
quite arduous. And then in most states, child support calculations
have to be done and attached to the judgment somehow
or incorporate into the judgment somehow. And then you get
into an issue of in a lot of cases, parties
sign AffA David's so that they don't have to appear
in court to have the judge sign the settlement paperwork.
(05:25):
In some cases that might not be possible, but you've
got these affi Davids as well, and you can translate
this into different types of family law cases. If it's
not a divorce, then you take out the marital settlement
separation agreement. For example, if it's a paternity case or
if it's a modification or something like that, then you
wouldn't need that, but you're still going to need in
(05:45):
most cases this other paperwork. And so the question gets
into houses paperwork drafted, okay, and in some cases you're
literally talking about three lawyers doing it. So you could
have the attorney for the husband drafting part of paperwork,
you could have the attorney for the wife drafting another
part of the paperwork. And let's say the guardian at
(06:06):
lighten wants to do the parenting plan. So now you've
got three lawyers involved trying to draft this paperwork, okay.
And so the issue is this, and this is why
it can be a big issue. I mean, once you
get three attorneys involved, this process can become slow. You know,
one attorney might draft this paperwork pretty quick, another attorney
(06:26):
might be busy and it might take them a while, okay.
And so for parties who settle, most of the time,
at least what I've seen is they want to then
get the case done quick. But there can be a
period of weeks or months where parties are taking their
time to have the paperwork put together because their lawyers
have other cases and other things that they're doing, so
they're taking their time. And then even when the paperwork's prepared,
(06:49):
then maybe one of the lawyers wants revisions or amendments
or additions to the paperwork, So then you're going back
and forth on these various drafts, and this can really
slow the process down, all right. And hearing this, a
lot of individuals think, well, was there a quicker way
to do this? Is there a more efficient way to
(07:10):
do this? And the truth is yeah, sometimes, And the
way that can take place is if a party just
tells their lawyer, look, just draft all the paperwork, just
do it all, and do it quick, because I want
to get this case done quick. All right. Well, what
would be the downsides of that, potentially, Well, the party
who's paying their lawyer to draft all the settlement paperwork
(07:32):
then is going to incur more in fees if the
lawyer is the one doing it all. So while it
might be quicker to have their lawyer just do the paperwork,
you know, themselves, and do it quicker if they're willing
and able to do it, it's going to cost them
some more money. So that can cause parties some pause
where they want to have this divvied up. That way,
they're not incurring all the fees for having the settlement
(07:55):
paperwork drafted. Of course, the other issue is sometimes the
other attorneys won't agree to this, Like the guardian at
lighter might insist like, no, I'm going to do the
parenting plan and I don't want another lawyer doing it.
And another lawyer might object to the other lawyer drafting
all the paywork. I mean, maybe they want to draft
a certain portion of it themselves because they think it's important.
(08:16):
Frank's Y or Z reason. All right, So even where
a party's willing to pay their lawyer to draft all
the settlement paperwork, you still have one or two other
attorneys in the case too. If there's a guardian I
light them and they have to agree to let the
one lawyer draft everything, and they might not agree to it. Okay,
(08:37):
So look, ultimately, who drafts a settlement paperwork That could
be a big issue, and it could be something that
lots of parties don't think about, They don't contemplate, they
don't even realize it's such a big deal. But it
can be a big deal. And the other thing I
would say, apart from the cost and the speed, I've
seen happen over the course of time, is that once
(08:59):
it takes a while for the paperwork to get drafted. Okay.
So if we're talking about a case where it takes
weeks or months to have this paperwork put together after
there is a purported agreement, what I've seen happen in
some cases is that the agreement on ravels and a
lot of listeners would say, well why is that? Well, look,
there could be intervening events that take place that get
(09:20):
the parties worked up or riled up, and now a
party who was willing to settle doesn't want to settle anymore. Okay,
So you know, I think time is important for parties
who want to get the case done through settlement. If
it's taken a long time to have this paperwork drafted,
I think the chances grow by the day that the
settlement agreement will never be put into play because intervening
(09:42):
events will take place like fins, arguments, bickering, or new
ambiguities occur, or new events occur, or circumstances change, and
so now parties don't want to sign the settlement paperwork anymore.
So look, at most instances I parties truly want to settle,
it's important to have this paperwork done quickly and have
(10:03):
both parties sign it and have the judge approve it
before somebody gets cold feed or changes their mind. Of course,
this is complicated for the reasons that I've just stated
that once you get three attorneys involved in terms of
draft and the paperwork, you know, hopefully it goes quick
and for the listeners, obviously, I'm sure that's what you want,
for it to go quick and for it to be executed,
(10:26):
you know, by both parties in terms of signing it
and the judge signing it, and so it's official. But
in a lot of cases you just have to realize
from the date that the case purportedly settles to the
date that the agreement is put together and the judge
approves that it could be weeks or months. And so
that's sort of the disy part of settlement agreements and
(10:46):
divorce or family law that I wanted to cover here today. Okay,
definitely an interesting topic for parties. Looking for more information
on this topic again going over to familaw headquarters dot
com read the article of date at September eight, twenty
twenty five titled who should draft a settlement paperwork? This
will give you more information on this topic, but thanks
for tuning in today. Stay tuned for our next episode
(11:07):
of Family Law Talk coming up. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Thank you for listening to Family Law Talk with Kirk Stangy.
Is it Stangy Lawfirm dot com for more about today's
topic or to put Stangy Law Firm to work for
your family today. The choice of a lawyer is an
important decision and should not be based solely on advertisements.
Either the Supreme Court of Missouri or Illinois reviews or
approve certifying organizations or specialist designations. The information you obtained
(11:34):
in this podcast is not, nor is it intended to
be legal advice. You should consult an attorney for advice
regarding your individual situation. We invite you to contact us
and welcome your calls, letters, and electronic mail. Contacting us
does not create an attorney client relationship. Please do not
send any confidential information to us until such time as
an attorney client relationship has been established. As the results
(11:56):
afford no guarantee of future results in every case is
different and must be d J one its own merits.
Kirkstangy is responsible for the content. Headquarters Office one twenty
South Central Avenue, Sweet four fifty, Clayton, Missouri six three
one oh five. Kirk Stangy is licensed in Missouri, Illinois,
and Kansas
Welcome to Family Law Talk. Familylaw Talk presented by Kirk
Stangy of Stangy Law Firm PC. Stangy Law Firm is
a multi state family law firm. Now here's your host,
Kirk Stangy.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to Family Law Talk. We have an interesting topic today.
The topic is who prepares the settlement paperwork? And this
episode today is based on an article on our blog
Familylawheadquarters dot com dated September eighth, twenty twenty five, and
the title of that article is who should draft the
settlement paperwork? So as a follow up to the episode today,
(00:41):
going over to Familawheadquarters dot com and read this blog
article for more information. But let's go ahead and jump
on into the topic at hand. Most individuals who are
going through divorceert family law matter would like to settle
their case. I mean, that's just the reality. Very few
people want a long contested case where the case costs
(01:01):
a lot of money and takes a bunch of time.
I mean, nobody really wants that. Of course, the issue
is the devil's in the details, and once you get
into the details, lots of parties disagree on the substantive
issues in the case, and that disagreement then leads to
a lot of cases being very hard to settle. All right,
but let's take a situation where the case has actually settled.
(01:24):
The parties have an agreement on everything, which is a
requirement in terms of all the relevant issues. The parties
have to agree. Okay, So let's take a situation where
the parties actually agree. And this could have taken place
many different ways based on the case. In some cases,
the parties just agree out of the gates. From my
experience as a lawyer, this is really pretty rare. Most
(01:46):
parties want this to be the case, but rarely is
it the case. But in some situations this can actually happen.
So take a case with the parties agree in the
terms of a divorce right out of the gates. In
other cases it might require settlement offers, going back and
forth between the attorneys who are dealing with offers and counteroffers.
And then let's take a situation where the parties eventually
(02:10):
reach an agreement. In other cases, parties have to go
to mediation and they work with a mediator, and then
at mediation, the hope is that they can come up
with a resolution or a compromise in order to settle
their case. And I've seen countless cases, I should say,
and this is sort of the majority, if you will,
which is the parties either settle in court, like on
(02:31):
the courthouse steps, or maybe they're in court on a
settlement conference or a pre trial conference, and the judge
gives some recommendations for settlement. And let's say the parties
settle in this kind of scenario. Okay, Well, no matter
how this takes place. When there's a settlement, then the
issue is who's going to draft the settlement paperwork? And
I think for a lot of parties this seems immaterial.
(02:53):
Most would think this isn't a big deal, But it
can actually turn into a bigger deal than most people
can actually realize. All right, so this can take place
quite a bit different in a lot of cases. But
what I see quite a bit, and have seen this
throughout my career, is the parties divide ups drafting the paperwork.
(03:14):
So in other words, the lawyers for the husband and
the lawyers for wife all draft different portions of the
settlement paperwork and then they compile this together. All right.
In some cases, the guardian at lighter might even get
involved in terms of drafting the parenting plan, and then
the party's lawyers draft the other portions of the paperwork.
Of course, this sort of begs the question, why is
there so much settlement paperwork that needs to be put
(03:37):
together in order to resolve a case? And I understand
why a lot of people would think that, but the
truth is in terms of the legal requirement, So there's
a lot of stuff that has to be put together
in order to settle a case. So take a divorce,
for example, there's going to be a judgment form or
a divorce decree. And then if there's property and debt
that has to be divided, there has to be a
(03:59):
marital selling and separation agreement. And this can be tedious
and ardulous because parties have to list all their property,
all their debts. You've got to have last four digits
of account numbers in the settlement paperwork. If there's real estate,
you've got to have the real estate description, and if
there's vehicles, you got to have the vehicle identification numbers
(04:20):
and various other things. So the marital settlement separation agreement
can involve a lot of work. And then we talked
about this before, but where there's kids, then there has
to be what's called a parented plan or custy schedule
put together all right, and this has to denote who
gets the kids when in terms of each day of
the week, and then you're dealing with holidays, you're dealing
(04:43):
with summer visitation in various other terms as well, in
terms of you know, how decisions are made and if
the parties can't agree, do they go to mediation, do
they go to arbitration, do they have a parent coordinator
or whatnot? And so all of that has to be
in the parenting planter cussing schedule, and that can be
(05:03):
quite arduous. And then in most states, child support calculations
have to be done and attached to the judgment somehow
or incorporate into the judgment somehow. And then you get
into an issue of in a lot of cases, parties
sign AffA David's so that they don't have to appear
in court to have the judge sign the settlement paperwork.
(05:25):
In some cases that might not be possible, but you've
got these affi Davids as well, and you can translate
this into different types of family law cases. If it's
not a divorce, then you take out the marital settlement
separation agreement. For example, if it's a paternity case or
if it's a modification or something like that, then you
wouldn't need that, but you're still going to need in
(05:45):
most cases this other paperwork. And so the question gets
into houses paperwork drafted, okay, and in some cases you're
literally talking about three lawyers doing it. So you could
have the attorney for the husband drafting part of paperwork,
you could have the attorney for the wife drafting another
part of the paperwork. And let's say the guardian at
(06:06):
lighten wants to do the parenting plan. So now you've
got three lawyers involved trying to draft this paperwork, okay.
And so the issue is this, and this is why
it can be a big issue. I mean, once you
get three attorneys involved, this process can become slow. You know,
one attorney might draft this paperwork pretty quick, another attorney
(06:26):
might be busy and it might take them a while, okay.
And so for parties who settle, most of the time,
at least what I've seen is they want to then
get the case done quick. But there can be a
period of weeks or months where parties are taking their
time to have the paperwork put together because their lawyers
have other cases and other things that they're doing, so
they're taking their time. And then even when the paperwork's prepared,
(06:49):
then maybe one of the lawyers wants revisions or amendments
or additions to the paperwork, So then you're going back
and forth on these various drafts, and this can really
slow the process down, all right. And hearing this, a
lot of individuals think, well, was there a quicker way
to do this? Is there a more efficient way to
(07:10):
do this? And the truth is yeah, sometimes, And the
way that can take place is if a party just
tells their lawyer, look, just draft all the paperwork, just
do it all, and do it quick, because I want
to get this case done quick. All right. Well, what
would be the downsides of that, potentially, Well, the party
who's paying their lawyer to draft all the settlement paperwork
(07:32):
then is going to incur more in fees if the
lawyer is the one doing it all. So while it
might be quicker to have their lawyer just do the paperwork,
you know, themselves, and do it quicker if they're willing
and able to do it, it's going to cost them
some more money. So that can cause parties some pause
where they want to have this divvied up. That way,
they're not incurring all the fees for having the settlement
(07:55):
paperwork drafted. Of course, the other issue is sometimes the
other attorneys won't agree to this, Like the guardian at
lighter might insist like, no, I'm going to do the
parenting plan and I don't want another lawyer doing it.
And another lawyer might object to the other lawyer drafting
all the paywork. I mean, maybe they want to draft
a certain portion of it themselves because they think it's important.
(08:16):
Frank's Y or Z reason. All right, So even where
a party's willing to pay their lawyer to draft all
the settlement paperwork, you still have one or two other
attorneys in the case too. If there's a guardian I
light them and they have to agree to let the
one lawyer draft everything, and they might not agree to it. Okay,
(08:37):
So look, ultimately, who drafts a settlement paperwork That could
be a big issue, and it could be something that
lots of parties don't think about, They don't contemplate, they
don't even realize it's such a big deal. But it
can be a big deal. And the other thing I
would say, apart from the cost and the speed, I've
seen happen over the course of time, is that once
(08:59):
it takes a while for the paperwork to get drafted. Okay.
So if we're talking about a case where it takes
weeks or months to have this paperwork put together after
there is a purported agreement, what I've seen happen in
some cases is that the agreement on ravels and a
lot of listeners would say, well why is that? Well, look,
there could be intervening events that take place that get
(09:20):
the parties worked up or riled up, and now a
party who was willing to settle doesn't want to settle anymore. Okay,
So you know, I think time is important for parties
who want to get the case done through settlement. If
it's taken a long time to have this paperwork drafted,
I think the chances grow by the day that the
settlement agreement will never be put into play because intervening
(09:42):
events will take place like fins, arguments, bickering, or new
ambiguities occur, or new events occur, or circumstances change, and
so now parties don't want to sign the settlement paperwork anymore.
So look, at most instances I parties truly want to settle,
it's important to have this paperwork done quickly and have
(10:03):
both parties sign it and have the judge approve it
before somebody gets cold feed or changes their mind. Of course,
this is complicated for the reasons that I've just stated
that once you get three attorneys involved in terms of
draft and the paperwork, you know, hopefully it goes quick
and for the listeners, obviously, I'm sure that's what you want,
for it to go quick and for it to be executed,
(10:26):
you know, by both parties in terms of signing it
and the judge signing it, and so it's official. But
in a lot of cases you just have to realize
from the date that the case purportedly settles to the
date that the agreement is put together and the judge
approves that it could be weeks or months. And so
that's sort of the disy part of settlement agreements and
(10:46):
divorce or family law that I wanted to cover here today. Okay,
definitely an interesting topic for parties. Looking for more information
on this topic again going over to familaw headquarters dot
com read the article of date at September eight, twenty
twenty five titled who should draft a settlement paperwork? This
will give you more information on this topic, but thanks
for tuning in today. Stay tuned for our next episode
(11:07):
of Family Law Talk coming up. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Thank you for listening to Family Law Talk with Kirk Stangy.
Is it Stangy Lawfirm dot com for more about today's
topic or to put Stangy Law Firm to work for
your family today. The choice of a lawyer is an
important decision and should not be based solely on advertisements.
Either the Supreme Court of Missouri or Illinois reviews or
approve certifying organizations or specialist designations. The information you obtained
(11:34):
in this podcast is not, nor is it intended to
be legal advice. You should consult an attorney for advice
regarding your individual situation. We invite you to contact us
and welcome your calls, letters, and electronic mail. Contacting us
does not create an attorney client relationship. Please do not
send any confidential information to us until such time as
an attorney client relationship has been established. As the results
(11:56):
afford no guarantee of future results in every case is
different and must be d J one its own merits.
Kirkstangy is responsible for the content. Headquarters Office one twenty
South Central Avenue, Sweet four fifty, Clayton, Missouri six three
one oh five. Kirk Stangy is licensed in Missouri, Illinois,
and Kansas
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