Free Presentation
How the Divorce Process Really Works, the 12 Costly Mistakes to Avoid, and How to Protect What Matters Without Spending Your Life Savings on Attorney's Fees
In this presentation, South Florida divorce attorney Scott Kalish walks you through the critical areas of Florida divorce: alimony, asset division, parenting plans, and controlling legal fees. You will learn the specific strategies and defenses that can reduce your financial exposure, protect your time with your children, and keep your attorney's fees under control.
Watch the full presentation above, then review the detailed breakdown below to revisit any section.
Presentation Breakdown
This presentation covers four critical areas of Florida divorce law, with three costly mistakes to avoid in each. Below is a detailed, scannable breakdown of every topic Scott covers in the video above.
Before a single dollar per month of alimony is ordered, the person asking for it has to prove two things: need and ability to pay.
The court looks at the requesting spouse's reasonable monthly expenses, then subtracts their available income. If there is a deficit, that deficit is their need. The claimed shortfall is the starting point for any alimony award.
Key Takeaway
There is no savings component to alimony under Florida law. The receiving spouse cannot claim savings as part of their monthly need. If the parties were accustomed to saving $3,000-$5,000 a month during the marriage, that amount does not carry over to the alimony calculation. It is strictly about expenses.
The court examines the paying spouse's net income (after taxes), subtracts their reasonable expenses, and determines whether a surplus exists. If there is a surplus, there is an ability to pay.
Importantly, you cannot manufacture an inability to pay by suddenly taking on unreasonable expenses. If you go lease a Porsche for $3,000 a month just to wipe out your surplus, the court has the power to disregard that expense entirely. The court looks at how the parties actually lived during the marriage when analyzing expenses.
Good to Know
In most cases, there is not enough money to go around to maintain the same standard of living post-divorce for both households. The court has the discretion to order an amount that requires both parties to reduce their standard of living. That is perfectly normal and expected.
The length of the marriage plays a major role in both the amount and duration of alimony. Florida recognizes three categories of marriage length:
| Marriage Type | Duration | Max Durational Alimony |
|---|---|---|
| Short-Term | Up to 10 years | 50% of the marriage length |
| Moderate-Term | 10 to 20 years | 60% of the marriage length |
| Long-Term | 20+ years | 75% of the marriage length |
Bridge-the-Gap Alimony: Designed primarily for short-term marriages to help the receiving spouse transition to their new life. Maximum duration is two years, and it is non-modifiable once set.
Rehabilitative Alimony: For a spouse who needs retraining, education, or licensing. Cannot exceed five years and requires a specific, defined plan. You cannot simply say "I'm going to go back to school." The court needs to know what you will study, how long it will take, and what the expected outcome is.
Durational Alimony: The most common type. Available for marriages lasting three years or longer. This is the "catch-all" category and is subject to the durational caps in the table above.
Key Takeaway
As of July 2023, Florida eliminated permanent alimony entirely. This is the most significant change to Florida divorce law in decades. Before this reform, marriages lasting more than 17 years carried a presumption that permanent alimony was appropriate. That is no longer the case.
For durational alimony specifically, the monthly amount must be the lesser of these two figures:
Whichever number is lower is the maximum. This is a critical formula that some attorneys overlook. You can run your own rough numbers with our Florida alimony calculator before your consultation.
Alimony Mistakes 1, 2 & 3
If your spouse claims they cannot work or cannot find a job, do not accept that at face value. Florida law allows the court to impute income to a voluntarily unemployed or underemployed spouse.
Scott describes a case where the wife had been unemployed for approximately ten years and was claiming she could not work. His team hired a vocational evaluator who conducted an interview, assessed her skills and background, checked for any physical or mental impairments, and then matched her with actual job listings in her area.
The result: nothing was preventing her from working. That evaluation was used in mediation to negotiate a significantly more favorable alimony outcome.
The burden is on you to prove your spouse can work. In approximately 99% of cases, this requires a vocational expert. It is an investment, but if alimony is a significant issue, the cost-benefit analysis often makes it worthwhile.
This one is not obvious, and Scott notes that some of his colleagues do not examine it as closely as they should. Florida law permits the court to impute a reasonable rate of return on a spouse's investments, both marital assets they will receive in the property division and non-marital assets they own separately.
In one case, the parties had approximately $2 million in marital assets. After imputing a reasonable rate of return on the wife's share, her need for alimony completely evaporated. That case settled for zero alimony.
Real-World Cost of Missing This
Scott describes a separate case where the opposing attorney did not raise this argument. That single oversight cost the husband approximately $250,000. The court cannot raise defenses on its own. If your attorney does not take the position, the court will not do it for you.
Even non-income-producing assets like raw land can be considered. If a spouse owns a million-dollar piece of land, the court can reason that selling it and investing the proceeds would generate a reasonable return, which offsets their claimed need.
Both parties in a Florida divorce must complete a financial affidavit: a nine or ten-page document listing all income and expenses across 50-60 line items. In Scott's experience, the expenses claimed by the requesting spouse are frequently exaggerated.
In one case, a wife claimed monthly expenses of $12,000 to run her household. She had no children living with her. Scott's team requested three years of bank and credit card statements and compared what she actually spent in each category to what she claimed on her affidavit.
The real number: approximately $5,500 to $6,500 per month. Based on her income, she no longer needed alimony at all. The alimony was terminated.
Equitable distribution is the legal process for dividing marital assets and debts. It follows a three-step process:
Non-marital assets are set aside before the division. Only the marital bucket gets split.
Equitable Distribution Mistakes 4, 5 & 6
All assets are presumed marital under Florida law. The burden falls on the person claiming an asset is non-marital property to prove it. If you do not prove it, it gets divided.
For example, if you had a 401(k) before the marriage, you need the account statement from the date of marriage showing the balance. That pre-marital amount, plus the passive appreciation on that money during the marriage, can be carved out of the division.
In one case involving a nearly 15-year marriage, Scott's client thought it would be impossible to get those old statements. But the effort paid off: they hired a forensic accountant on a limited basis to trace the non-marital component, and it saved the client tens of thousands of dollars.
What actually gets divided in a retirement account is the contributions made during the marriage and the growth on those contributions. The pre-marital balance and its passive growth belong to the original owner.
The date of filing is one of the most strategically important dates in a Florida divorce. Any new asset earned or acquired after the date of filing is non-marital. That is the cutoff.
Important
Moving out of the house, sleeping in separate bedrooms, or separating informally does not trigger this cutoff. By statute, it is the date of filing that matters. If you have already decided to pursue divorce and you are the higher-earning spouse, dragging your feet could mean more of your future earnings become part of the marital estate.
Scott is clear: he never pushes anyone into divorce. But once you have made that decision, consider filing sooner rather than later if you are the moneyed spouse. Every month of delay is another month of income accumulation that may be subject to division.
A $100,000 retirement account is not worth $100,000 in cash. If you pull from a 401(k) early, you may face penalties and income taxes. This means retirement assets need to be discounted to reflect their actual after-tax value.
When one spouse wants to keep their retirement intact and the other keeps the cash, the retirement account's value must be treated as if it were liquidated today. A $100,000 401(k) might really be worth approximately $70,000 after taxes and penalties.
Failing to account for this can result in an unfair split where one spouse walks away with significantly more real-dollar value than the other.
There is no "custody" under Florida law anymore. Instead, there are two concepts:
As of July 2023, Florida law presumes that equal time-sharing is in the best interest of children. This means the court starts from the position that both parents will get 50/50 time. A parent requesting something different carries the burden of proving why an unequal schedule serves the children's best interest.
Scott notes that this is a relatively tough burden to meet. If you want an extreme result, you need extreme facts to support it. Keep in mind that equal time-sharing does not automatically eliminate a child support obligation, since support is still calculated on each parent's income.
Common 50/50 schedules include:
| Schedule | How It Works | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| 2-2-3 | Alternating short blocks with weekend rotation | Younger children (frequent contact) |
| 2-2-5-5 | Each parent has the same two weekdays every week, alternating weekends | Elementary/middle school age (Scott's preferred schedule) |
| Week On / Week Off | Seven consecutive days with each parent | Older children/teenagers |
Shared Parental Responsibility is the standard: both parents make major decisions together with an equal vote. This covers healthcare, education, and general welfare decisions.
Shared with Ultimate Decision-Making applies when 50/50 decision-making is found to be detrimental to the child. Both parents must still confer in good faith, but one parent has the final say.
Sole Parental Responsibility is the most rare and most extreme. This is reserved for situations like parental abandonment, where one parent has disappeared entirely. The parent with sole responsibility does not even have to attempt to confer with the other parent.
Parenting Plan Mistakes 7, 8 & 9
A Florida parenting plan is extremely difficult to modify after the fact. It requires a substantial and material change in circumstances before a court will consider changing it.
Scott gives a practical example: imagine your parenting plan contains a provision requiring both parents to agree in writing before anyone else can watch the children during your time. That seems reasonable when co-parenting is amicable. But fast-forward a year or two. You start dating someone new. Your ex is hostile toward your new partner. Now you cannot even leave the house to run errands unless your ex agrees to let your girlfriend or new wife watch the kids.
Modifying this is not as simple as going to court and asking. Most courts deny supplemental petitions to modify parenting plans unless there has been a major, material change in circumstances. You could be stuck with provisions that severely limit how you parent for years.
Vague language in a parenting plan is a ticking time bomb. Scott describes cases where parenting plans say things like "holiday time will be as the parties agree." When you are sitting in mediation and just want the case over, that language sounds perfectly reasonable.
But when co-parenting becomes contentious, every single holiday becomes a negotiation. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, spring break, summer vacation: each one is a fight where the controlling ex demands unreasonable concessions in exchange for agreeing to anything.
Key Takeaway
Your parenting plan needs specific provisions for every holiday that matters to you. It also needs mechanisms for extended travel time (typically two weeks of uninterrupted time-sharing in the summer). If it is not written into the plan, treat it as something that will not happen. Even if you do not travel internationally now, your children will get older and those opportunities will arise. The provision needs to be there from the start.
This provision gives your parenting plan teeth. Without it, violations result in little more than a slap on the wrist from the court.
Here is how it works: if your parenting plan includes a prevailing party attorney's fees provision and the other parent violates the agreement (say, withholding the children on a day that was clearly your time), the court must award your reasonable attorney's fees if you prevail. The court does not have discretion to deny fees if this provision is in place.
Without this provision, pursuing a violation in court costs you thousands of dollars for what the court may view as a trivial issue. With this provision, the violating parent knows they will have to pay your legal costs if they lose, which often prevents violations from happening in the first place.
You cannot control what the other side does. But you can control how you navigate through the process. Avoiding these three mistakes significantly increases the likelihood that your case will cost less and resolve faster. For a fuller breakdown of what drives the total bill, see our guide on how much a divorce costs in Florida.
Attorney's Fee Mistakes 10, 11 & 12
A bad legal position almost guarantees the other side will challenge it, dragging the case out longer and costing more than necessary. Every position you take must be supported by two things: the facts and the law.
If either one is missing, the position becomes shaky and subject to attack. A good attorney will tell you when a position is not supported by the facts or the law. Scott describes his role as a navigator: you are the captain of the ship, and he tells you which way to sail based on the facts you provide and his knowledge of Florida law. Many of these disputes are ultimately resolved through mediation rather than a trial, which is another reason a well-supported position matters from day one.
Emotions will always play a role in family law. That is unavoidable. But the clients who do best are the ones who manage to stay level-headed and maintain objectivity.
Before taking any position, ask yourself: am I doing this because it is the right legal strategy, or am I doing this because I am angry at my soon-to-be ex? The answer matters, because emotion-driven positions tend to be bad legal positions, and bad legal positions cost money and add to your overall divorce timeline.
Scott is direct about this: he is not a therapist. Most family law attorneys are not qualified mental health professionals. Their job is to intake your facts, analyze the legal issues, provide advice, and point you in the right direction.
Calling your attorney to vent about a text message from your ex, unless it is genuinely relevant to a legal issue, is paying hourly rates for a service your attorney is not trained to provide. Before every call or email to your attorney, ask: is this something my lawyer needs to know for my case, or is this something I need to get off my chest? If it is the latter, a therapist is a better (and less expensive) option.
Quick Reference
The 12 Costly Divorce Mistakes at a Glance
Alimony
Asset Division
Parenting
Legal Fees
Have questions about how these strategies apply to your situation?
Schedule a confidential strategy session with our team. No pressure, no obligation. If you watched this presentation and decide to hire us, the cost of your initial attorney consultation is applied toward your retainer.
Continue Learning
Want to go deeper on any of the topics above? These articles walk through the details in plain English:
The information provided on this page is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is different. Please consult with a qualified family law attorney before making any legal decisions.
