Meeting with a divorce attorney for the first time can feel overwhelming. You’re emotional, uncertain, and trying to make decisions that could impact your finances, your children, and your future. The problem is that when you’re in that emotional state, it’s easy to walk into a consultation unprepared and ask the wrong questions-or miss the questions that actually matter.

In this episode of How Not to Suck at Divorce, Morgan Stogsdill pulls back the curtain on what really happens during divorce consultations and shares the best—and worst—questions you can ask a divorce attorney.

If you're preparing to meet with a lawyer, this episode will help you walk into that consultation with confidence, ask smarter questions, and avoid mistakes that could cost you time and money.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

• Why divorce attorneys struggle to answer questions like “How long will this take?” and “How much will this cost?”
• How preparation before your consultation can dramatically improve your legal strategy
• The surprising question every client should ask their attorney about how they present as a witness
• How communication expectations with your legal team can affect your experience and your bill
• The powerful question Morgan asks clients that reveals the hidden risks in a divorce case

The Questions Divorce Attorneys Wish You Would Ask

During your initial consultation, asking thoughtful questions can help you better understand your case and set realistic expectations.

Some of the most helpful questions include:

1. How would I present as a witness if this case went to court?

Even though most divorces settle before trial, understanding how your behavior, communication, and evidence may be perceived can help you strengthen your case.

2. Is there anything in my story that could make achieving my goals difficult?

This question allows your attorney to set realistic expectations and identify potential challenges early.

3. What is the best way to communicate with you and your team?

Many law firms work collaboratively with legal teams. Understanding how communication works can help you get faster responses and better support.

4. What can I do to be more prepared and save money on legal fees?

Being organized—creating timelines, gathering documents, and preparing information—can significantly reduce the amount of billable time your attorney spends on your case.

Questions That Are Hard for Attorneys to Answer

While they’re completely understandable, two questions clients ask most often are also the hardest to answer:

“How long will my divorce take?”

The timeline depends on many variables, including court schedules, negotiations, cooperation between parties, and whether the case settles or goes to trial.

“How much will my divorce cost?”

Divorce costs can vary widely depending on how contentious the case becomes, whether mediation is used, and how prepared both parties are throughout the process.

The Question That Reveals Everything

One of the most powerful questions Morgan asks potential clients is:

“What’s the worst thing your ex is going to say about you?”

This question often catches people off guard, but it reveals critical information about potential arguments, credibility, and issues that could surface during negotiations or litigation.

Being honest about weaknesses in your case allows your attorney to prepare for them strategically.

Preparing for Your Divorce Consultation

Walking into a consultation prepared can make a huge difference in how productive the meeting is. Some helpful steps include:

• gathering financial documents
• understanding who your spouse’s attorney may be
• organizing a timeline of events
• thinking through your goals for the divorce

The more information you bring to the consultation, the easier it is for your attorney to give meaningful guidance.

Our Divorce Crash Course was designed to hold your hand through the process and help you avoid major and expensive mistakes. Learn more here: https://www.hownottosuckatdivorce.com/divorce-crash-course

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Guide: How to Hire the Right Divorce Attorney
• The Divorce Crash Course
• How Not to Suck at Divorce Private Community

You can find direct links to these resources in the episode show notes.

About the Podcast

How Not to Suck at Divorce helps people navigate divorce with clarity, strategy, and support. Hosted by comedian Andrea Rappaport and family law attorney Morgan Stogsdill, the podcast breaks down the legal, financial, and emotional realities of divorce so listeners can avoid costly mistakes and move forward with confidence.

Our Family Wizard is another fantasitc resource for those who need help navigating the "fun" world of coparenting. Head to this landing page to see how we work closely with them to support our listeners! http://www.ourfamilywizard.com/notsuck

Friends, slide into our dms, we love love love hearing from you. We are always here to listen and help in any way we can. You've got this and we've got you.

Instagram: @hownotosuckatdivorce

Follow Andrea: @theandrearappaport

Follow Morgan: @divorceattorneychicago

Mentioned in this episode:

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It's my turn to pull back the curtain and share what really goes on through my mind when I have client consultations. It's best and worst questions you can ask your soon to be divorce attorney on this episode of How Not to Suck at Divorce.

Speaking of pulling back the curtain, I want to share something really personal with you guys. I sleep with a stuffed animal named, Jesus, Andrea, are you serious right now?

What's the stuffed animal's name?

What you've written is Mr. Wigglesworth, which is so far from the truth. It's actually Mr. John, but

Mr. John? What is Mr. John?

Mr. John.

I'm not getting into it with you. You want to put this all out there?

It's really brave of you to start sharing. really enjoyed this pulling back the curtain. Wait.

I love

that you write this for me.

You're welcome. ⁓ I had a baby blanket and one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life is when in one of my recent moves, I lost it. I'm really sucked. had this baby blanket since I was born and it's not like I still slept with it only on Thursdays, but.

Please never

do that voice again, it hurt my ears.

What, only on Thursdays? That voice? Why? That's like one of my more appealing, that's like my bedroom voice.

⁓ because we're losing.

That's unfortunate for your husband.

He loves it. ⁓ Did you actually, did you really, did you have a baby blanket or like stuffies? Were you a stuffy kind of girl?

I was a blanket kind of a girl as well, but I don't remember how long I had the blanket, but it just kept getting smaller and smaller until at one point it was just like down to nothing.

I am still a blanket girl, not like a baby blanket girl, but I have an obsession with blankets. I really selfishly want to get Lola blankets to sponsor our podcast so that they can send us some. Have you looked at these blankets, the Lola's? Girl, everything about it is special. First of all, I think they're made of butter and the king size or like the big size of these blankets are like $325.

No. What's so special?

⁓ Morgan's little wiggle-er thighs just perked up. Morgan likes the sound of that. Wrap me up in that. No, they are amazing.

They just feel so comforting and I don't know. And now I'm going to struggle getting into a segue here, but here we go. Let's talk about comforting. When you meet with a divorce attorney for the first time, ⁓ I got it. You are looking for something to comfort you, right? You are in a shitty place. You're feeling overwhelmed. You're scared. You're tired. You want that big old nice expensive Lola

blanket to wrap around your shoulders and make you feel better. And you don't need me to tell you that, right? Like you're the one going through this. You know how bad you feel. The problem is that when we are in that space emotionally, it's really hard for the mental part of our bodies to click on and ask the right questions. It's so easy to have a

bad consultation with your divorce attorney. It is so damn easy So we want to help you not do that. So we're actually going to start with the negative here. Morgan, what are some of the questions that you get when you're meeting a client for the first time that you are just like, ⁓ good God,

⁓ the ones that really are just tough for us because we don't again have a crystal ball, but we'd like one is how long will this take? And can we get this settled basically tomorrow? And I say, it all depends and they hate that answer, but it depends on so many things. You can't settle the case by yourself. You just can't. If you could, nobody would be in this divorce process. You have another party on the other side. It takes two to settle.

And if you don't settle out of court, you know you're going to court. And court is a wild card of how long it could take. So I try to answer this question with different realms of where it could land. But really, most clients are probably walking up being like, she didn't answer that. I don't know what it's going to look like. The other thing that everyone wants to know, and I would want to know it if I was a divorce client, is how much will this cost?

And again, it depends on so many things. How much are you going to fight your ex? How much is your ex going to fight you? Is your ex going to hire an unreasonable attorney that just wants to create problems? Are we going to be in court? Are we going to be in mediation? Are you going to come to me with an agreement that's totally fabulous? And I'm like, yeah, green light, we're done. These are all things that drive up costs. So it's really hard for us to answer these kind of questions.

you just said something that is so true. It's normal to ask how much something costs. mean, anytime you and I get into an agreement with a new business, right? If we're working with somebody or we're about to hire someone to do something, one of the first questions you ask is how much is it going to cost? Long-term, not just like the initial buy-in, right? But you're like, okay, what does the real relationship look like? And is the juice going to be worth the squeeze? So God, it's so normal.

for a client to want to know that. It feels counterintuitive to not ask how much is it going to cost. I wanna help you reframe here. One of the things that you can do is be more prepared for this consultation that you have with an attorney. If you just roll into this thing, raw dogging it, then you're gonna just be all over the place.

If you are the respondent in the case, meaning that your ex has filed, they are the petitioner, you should already know who their attorney is. That brings some information to the table. If you don't know who their attorney is because they haven't told you, but you know that they filed, well, guess what? When you sit down with your attorney, they can look it up in their little magic system.

and tell you who the attorney is. That can give you some indication on how this could play out, how long it might take with certain caveats.

You're so right because there are so many people that come to me and they say, this is my ex's attorney. And right away I'm like, wonderful. I know I work great with them. I know they're reasonable. They don't just churn the file or take unreasonable positions just to cause chaos. And I can tell the client, this is going to be really good for you. Other times I can say, you know what? I've worked with them. At times we can work it out. At times we have to go to court.

So there's different things that we can say that they know kind of what to look for.

I remember when I got divorced, one of the things that my divorce attorney said to me was, your husband's attorney is on vacation more than she's at the office. She's never around.

So this shit is gonna get delayed because she's probably on a beach somewhere right now sipping on Mai Tai.

That sounds pretty fabulous. I'm gonna give you some good questions of what you would want to ask your potential attorney on the first meeting. And the first one might shock you because the attorney should go through all of the background of your story, kind of seeing what the issues are, what the assets look like, whether it's really contentious, whether it's really amicable. And one of the things that people don't ask

their attorneys, but maybe they should is, how do you think I would present as a witness to the other side?

Because we don't think that we're on trial. It's not something we thought, you know, we're not being accused of a crime. So why would we think to ask? How would I present as a witness?

And you know, the reason I say that you're right, and most divorce cases never make it to a trial, but it does give you some good feedback on what you can do better. Maybe it's, you know, things you're saying, maybe it's the way that you're acting, maybe it's the written stuff that you've put in writing, text, email, et cetera. And if your lawyer is consulting with you and sees all these things, they may be able to, if you're open to good feedback, which I always suggest you should be,

really direct you in a better way to get you back on the train tracks.

So this could be a place where, let's say, someone is presenting the way that I illustrated a few minutes ago, where they're really emotional. They are all over the place. And please know that when I say that, I'm not saying with judgment. You're going to be emotional, obviously. But I mean like a real basket case. That would be a place where an attorney would say, well, right now, you wouldn't present really strongly.

because of this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's where you would need to be open and adjust what your demeanor, the way you're communicating.

Yeah, agreed, the other thing I would say to you is ask them after your consultation with them and after they know everything that you've talked about during your consult, is there anything that I shared that's a concern for achieving my goals? And that's the time where your attorney or your potential attorney can really set realistic expectations. Because if you come in there thinking you're gonna get the sun, the moon and the stars,

And then you ask this question and the attorney says, you know, I think I can get you the sun and the moon, but the stars are totally off the table. It's not going to happen. You might not like to hear it, but at least your expectations are set in the realistic way.

next one, what's the best way to communicate with you? And when can I hear back from you? You you want to set the tone with the lawyer of like, how does it work with your firm? Also, who am I communicating with? For me, I know when I have a new client come in, I ask them to put the entire team on the email so that we don't miss an email. It's more about managing the client and making sure they're getting really good service as opposed to someone emailing me and I've got 300 emails a day and I might miss something, which we don't want to have happen.

That's also though a place where if your attorney says that to you, that then is your indication that your attorney works with the team. And so you should then be aware of the fact that they have a whole team and you're gonna have multiple eyes and ears on your case. And it might not always be the person you're sitting in front of at that moment who's going to be responding to you. And that's okay.

Yes, and we've said it numerous times go back into our previous episodes about why this can be a good thing. It's how we I work personally with a team and that should be something discussed in the meeting of how it's going to work in the team realm. And usually it's a good thing. So just know that go back and listen to the episodes. Finally, the last question you might want to ask is, am I prepared enough or what can I do to be more prepared or help you in this case? Spoiler alert, this is the money saving question.

What can I do to take work off of your plate so that I save dollars in my pocket?

I literally talked about this a few episodes ago. I was just helping my husband with a legal dispute and I helped my husband put together a timeline and his attorney said, oh my God, this just saved me at least three hours. Three hours times $550 an hour. I mean, you do the math. There's something, was that that voice again? You do the math.

It wasn't as bad.

⁓

Okay, good. There's something that you ask people that I love, because I find it so interesting. So what's the question that you are known for asking, Morgan?

All right, I'm going leave you with this question that I ask clients that can really kind of catch them off guard and I usually ask them at the end because like any consult, you, a client is going to say their story or tell their story in the way that they see it. They view it through their eyes and there's always going to be some kind of spin on it because we're human. That's just how it goes. So after I listen to everything that I'm kind of

computing in my head what kind of case it is, what it looks like, where our pitfalls are, where our positives are. I say to the client, what's the worst thing that your ex is going to say about you? And the reason, and it usually stops people in their tracks. And I want to, I'm doing two things when I'm asking them this. One, I'm watching their face and their demeanor. I want to see how they respond.

And the second thing is I want to know if they're going to be honest. So for instance, I had a client, you know, I'll just say a year ago come in a potential client. And when I got to this question, I said, what's the worst thing your ex would say about you? It was a guy And the guy responded, my ex is going to say, and he responded without a beat, my ex is going to say that I have a very bad temper. And I'm like, all right, tell me more. And he said, it's true. I do have a bad temper, but I'm working on it.

I've gotten a therapist and it's getting so much better. That then and there made me realize that number one, this guy is telling the truth. He is getting the help he needs. And I believe him because he could have said, and I've had this happen, my ex is going to say that I have a really bad temper, but I don't. I've never yelled once in my 14 years of marriage. I've never yelled once. And the kids, they think I'm the best dad on earth.

And so then when I say to them, well, why would they say you have a bad temper? I don't know, they're making it up. I don't know, they're making it up. And then I say to them, okay, but if your children, if they're of the ripe age, are asked about how you behave and do you yell, what are they going to say? no, no, no, they won't say anything. Those are the questions that I have to get out because those are the things can really trip you up. It's better to be more forthcoming, especially on things that could hurt you. Put them on the table.

It's so funny when you mentioned this the other day, I'm like, I have no idea. Probably that I'm like dramatic. Oh, she's I remember actually, accused me of I think it was that I was too likable. I was too. She's so charming. She can win anybody over. I'm like, that's like a that's a

That's not a flaw. I think it meant that I was manipulative, but I didn't take it that way. Guys, I want to make sure that as you're leaving this episode, you know exactly what you should be asking and what you should not be asking. Do not ask

to cost. They don't know. If you are prepared with here's, you know, this is the background. This is what I think.

can get heated. This is some major issues. Then your attorney can give you like a realistic time frame of how long it's going to take. The longer it takes, the more expensive it's going to get. You can obviously ask them what their hourly is. mean, duh, you need to know that. If your attorney is $850 an hour, you're not going to get out of this thing for

a little bit of money. You're going to get out of this thing for a lot of bit of money. So take that into consideration. Another thing that you can ask is, do you work with a team? And if you work with a team, are there members of your team that bill at a lower hourly rate? And can you show me how I can best use them? That is a good question in terms of like money. You also want to ask them if your goals are realistic.

You also want to ask them, is there something that I didn't ask you that I should be asking you? I've talked about this before. I also use that question when I'm talking to a doctor. Always make sure you ask them, am I missing something? Anything else, Morgan?

I think you've hit it all and I just want you to remember if you need more community, we have community on Facebook. We have a huge private community. We have the DCC. Check it out if you need more information. Go to our past podcasts. Feel free to send us a message and please leave us a review.

And I wanna remind you guys, because we're talking about attorneys right now, there is a guide on our website that holds your hand through how to hire the right attorney for your case. And it's different information and more information, I should say, than what we covered in this episode. But if you are at that point where you're about to roll into consultations, I'll give you a pro tip right now, do not hire the first person you interview. You've gotta interview at least three people.

Go grab that guide. It's $20 and it will save you a massive headache. And like Morgan just mentioned, the brand new Divorce Crash Course is a game changer. It holds your hands through saving money with your attorney. It holds your hands through figuring out your finances, avoiding major mistakes, getting you through the parenting agreement, and it is only $50.

There's a direct link in our show notes. We do these episodes because we know that these are the areas that trip people up. And like I said, when we started this conversation, you're gonna be emotional. I know that. It's hard to think clearly. So write this stuff down. Let this be your guide. We're gonna be here for you every day throughout your divorce process. Listen to our episodes on the really, really bad days and listen to the episodes on the good days.

Take a walk, put us in your ears. We are your divorce besties. We will help you get through this.

That's right, because divorce is a marathon, it is not a sprint. And on your worst days, you are doing it, and you have got this.

And we, my friends,

have got you.