Funding Your Appeal: Temporary Appellate Fees in Dissolution Cases

If your client gets a bad judgment in a divorce case, you can appeal the decision. While waiting for the appeal to finish, you can ask for money to help pay for the appeal process. This money is called temporary appellate attorneys’ fees. Once the appeal is over, you can also ask for final attorneys’ fees. Knowing when to ask for temporary or final fees can be tricky, but remembering the “four Cs” (competent counsel, continuing jurisdiction, concluding jurisdiction, and chicken or the egg) can help. In a divorce case, the court can order one spouse to pay the other’s attorney fees to make sure both sides have equal access to legal help, even if one spouse has more money. This is to be fair to both sides. The court can also keep making these orders even if one spouse appeals the decision. In this situation, trial courts have a lot of power to decide how much money attorneys should get for their work on an appeal. The appellate courts are hesitant to interfere unless there’s a really good reason to. They also have to decide if a party should get their attorneys’ fees paid at the end of the appeal process. It’s up to the party asking for the money to prove that the fees are reasonable and necessary. Once the appeal is over, the trial court can’t give out temporary fees anymore. So it’s important to file a request for fees before the appeal is finished. When there’s an appeal in a court case, the trial court can award temporary fees for the lawyers working on the appeal. To get the final fees, you need to file a motion before the deadline to file a reply brief. The amount of fees is based on the ability to pay. It’s best to file for both temporary and final fees at the beginning of the appeal process. The appellate court decides if you’re entitled to the fees. In the end, you can get a permanent award of fees that includes any temporary payments. If your client needs it, they can get temporary fees for their lawyers during the appeal. Just make sure to file the right motions on time. In a divorce case in Florida, it’s important for both parties to be able to afford a good lawyer. Some court cases and laws have talked about this, like Nichols v. Nichols and Fla. Stat. §61.16. It’s important for both sides to have a fair chance. Genny Castellanos is a lawyer who helps other law firms with complicated cases, and Benjamin Goodman is a lawyer who helps indigenous communities in Latin America. This article was written by the Appellate Practice Section, which is a group of lawyers who focus on appeals.

Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/funding-your-appeal-temporary-appellate-fees-in-dissolution-cases/