Sometimes, the length of time it takes to get parties divorced and then to implement the provisions of an agreement or judgment can be long. Things happen along the way. Practitioners can agree that one of the more common reasons for divorces to drag on are all of the ancillary litigation that can accompany a typical case—even if one or both of the parties started out wanting a “quick and easy divorce.” Divorces get bogged down in support and custody litigation, discovery issues and special relief requests, and even domestic violence litigation.

Once divorced and the parties have a decree in hand, next comes the implementation of the provisions of an agreement, an agreed upon recommendation, or a judgment accompanied by the decree. The more complex the makeup of the marital estate, the more things will need to be accomplished to truly make the parties independent of one another. The process of dividing different classes of retirement accounts, dividing nonretirement assets and the tax consequences that often accompany them, and dividing a portfolio of real estate can take months to accomplish, often involving the services and cooperation of professionals from other disciplines as well as the inexhaustible number of forms and varying procedures from financial firms holding assets of the estate. Notwithstanding, even in the noncomplex “house and pension case,” once the decree is entered there still may be plenty of things to do.