Revisiting and Prioritizing Your Goals: Time, Money, & Outcome
Back in the earlier stages of your time with Freed Marcroft, we explained that at some point during your divorce, you’ll need to prioritize your goals for your divorce in terms of time, money, and outcome. We shared that reality early to help you now what was coming down the line and anticipate these choices so you can make them strategically, rather than reactively.
Now, it’s time to make some decisions about how you want balance time, money, and outcome. Hint: it’s all about understanding your personal priorities and how they interact with each other.
Here’s how to approach this decision-making process:
1️⃣ Identify Your Core Priorities
Before you can balance these three factors, take a step back and ask:
- What matters most to me in the long run?
- Am I more focused on moving forward quickly, reducing my legal fee investment, or securing a specific outcome?
You may value all three, but in most cases, one will take precedence. Identifying what’s most important to you in advance will help guide you when you need to make trade-offs.
2️⃣ Understand the Trade-Offs Between Time, Money, and Outcome
These three factors are often competing priorities—improving one may require compromise in another.
| Priority | What it Means | Potential Trade-Offs |
|---|---|---|
| Time – Resolving your divorce as quickly as possible. | Emphasizing efficiency and minimizing delays. | May require more flexibility in negotiations or settling sooner, even if it’s not as favorable an outcome as you could have achieved with a more extended approach. |
| Money – Managing legal fees and the short-term cost of the divorce. | Focusing on controlling legal expenses and the financial cost of the process itself. | Avoiding extended litigation or advanced discovery can lower fees but may limit opportunities to achieve a better outcome. |
| Outcome – Achieving a specific result, including financial settlements, alimony, child support, parenting and custody arrangements, and asset division. | Prioritizing a divorce resolution that better supports your long-term financial and personal goals. | May require more time and a higher legal fee investment, but securing a better outcome—especially financially—can have a significantly larger impact than the short-term cost of the divorce. |
Many people instinctively focus on legal fees in the moment, but it’s important to consider how financial settlements (part of Outcome) often have a much greater long-term impact than the cost of the process itself. This is a key part of what we’ll help you evaluate in your Strategy Sessions.
3️⃣ Find the Right Balance for You
- If time is your top priority, you might be willing to compromise on some financial details or settle sooner to move forward quickly.
- If keeping legal fees manageable is most important, you may aim to resolve your case efficiently, but that could mean accepting a less favorable financial settlement.
- If securing the best financial or legal outcome is your priority, investing in discovery, negotiations, or even litigation may be worthwhile, since a better long-term settlement can far outweigh the short-term cost of legal fees.
Most people fall somewhere in the middle and need to weigh the risks and benefits of each decision as their case progresses.
4️⃣ Make Informed Decisions with Our Guidance
During your Strategy Sessions, we will:
✅ Review where your case stands.
✅ Discuss whether your priorities have shifted.
✅ Strategically adjust your approach to align with what’s most important to you.
By the end of this discussion, you will have a clearer understanding of where to focus your energy and resources, so that your divorce process supports the future you want.
