Every situation is different, no one can tell you how long or how much for your particular case.

Our attorney cost about half that because he was a friend of the family. It ended up costing us almost $15,000. It gets expensive very fast. It also depends on how much stuff BM pulls and how much work the attorney has to do. Start to finish- it took us 10 months. We started at the beginning of January. My DH was granted custody in September of the same year. There were two mediation sessions and three hearings.

Also, if your BM is high conflict, then it really never ends. We've been back to court numerous times. Here we are, two years later and we have another court hearing coming up.

We were in court off and on for 10 years, to the tune of almost $50,000 for me. A good friend of mine was over and done in less than three months, and didn't even go to trial because she and her ex were able to resolve everything in mediation. It depends on the other party you're dealing with, mostly.

Are you asking about price for 1 to 2 days OR double digit years price and still going on.

Keep in mind preparation hours for the trial too.

5k at least for one go around which is on the very low side.

IF your bm is high conflict and manages to have a free lawyer OR parents with mortgages on their home or SHE 2nd mortgages with a husband or two...well...you may be in court until past emancipation age.
Costs could go way past 50, 60K and higher.

Just being realistic.

Methinks your attorney costs too mucking fuch. My ex's case lasted about 15 months WITHOUT AN ATTORNEY (including a round of mediation and BM was out-of-state) and he ended up with sole custody by erecting boundaries and making BM adhere to them...thanks to MY research and guidance.

Read this, get a new attorney and/or make sure your attorney knows you're dealing with a high conflict ex. https://narcsite.com/2017/07/29/fighting-back-how-to-handle-the-narcissi...

My friend still owes $ 80,000 attorney fees, psych eval etc. Making pmts for the last 2 years.

Child is now 7yrs & they're back in court. Borrowed an add'l $10K last week from her future-stepfather.

Seeing all these different amounts is terrifying. We are in the middle of a nasty court battle with a high conflict BM and there is no way i will be okay with paying anything over 10k for this. Its absolutely insane especially because BM has a free lawyer and has every intention of running our bill high, words spoken from her own mouth.

We go to our first court appearance end of Aug. GL!

We went to court a few times over SS-25's Custody/Visitation/Support order when he was 2-18. The first time cost us about $10K all in but that included about 7mos of tit-for-tat back and forth and tightening the noose around the necks of the SpermIdiot and SPermClan regarding their games. They canceled several court dates at the last minute after my wife had flown back to SpermLand for court in an attempt to pressure my wife (then GF) financially to give up custody of the kid. She had been awarded full physical and legal custody and the SpermIdiot ordered to pay $110/mo shortly after SS was born.

Rather than buckle to the pressure and hand over the kid she took out supplemental school loans and got an attorney. Eventually they backed off from their original attempt for full custody and went through a series of ridiculous crap starting with EOW visitation (she and the baby were living out of state while she attended college), then 26 weeks of long distance visitation, then 15wks. We married two weeks before we finally got to court. Our last counter was for 9wks of visitation which they refused. We ended up handing them their asses in court, CS was increased (to a pathetically whopping $135/mo) and the Judge awarded them 7wks of long distance visitation (5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring). They tried to get us to agree to our previous offer of 9wks as we walked out of court but my wife just laughed in their faces as we left. We spent almost 8hrs in court that day.

Over the course of the next 10-ish years we had a few $hundred in legal fees for smacking them around over their idiocy and beating their idiot asses (legally not literally) for violating the visitation order. In our final court episode we went pro-se though we did do some prep sessions with our attorney for a couple $thousand. We handed them their butts that time too. CS was increased by 6X with a significant award of arrears for the SpermIdiot's running from the process server and pathetic attempts so avoid court. The admin law Judge raised his CS by 6X and ordered direct payroll withholding of CS due to his failure to show or provide the subpoenaed information. After he got a $Zero paycheck and went on a pathetic whine fest we had a 2hr telephone hearing during which CS was reduced from 6X to 3X where it stayed for the last 6 years of the CO.

My primary advice is three fold. 1. Get the best shark attorney that you can afford.

2. Document, document, document... and document some more. Have it all organized and ready to present in court to bare the toxic opposition's idiot asses and to counter any lies they may throw into the mix in court. Save it all, add to it as events unfold over the years, and recycle it for toxic opposition beatings whenever necessary. Keep the Skids informed of the situation and any toxic crap the opposition attempts ... in an age appropriate manner. This helps prepare them to protect themselves from any toxic manipulations as they progress into and through adulthood. You and your SO may be free of the opposition when the Skids age out from under the CO but sadly the Skids are stuck with these toxic morons for life.

And 3. Have fun barring their idiot asses. }:)

Good luck.

My DH went to "trial". Whole mess cost 16K and he is still racking up lawyer fees because the CO is very poorly written so nobody knows if they're following it or not. BM and DH's lives now consist of an endless series of threatening to hold each other in contempt while waving the CO back and forth at each other because nobody is really sure what it actually says. I think it was 10K after the "trial" and another 6k spent on chasing the lawyer around trying to get the final order and a copy of the transcript and trying to figure out what the CO actually meant once he finally produced it because it specifies absolutely nothing except a vague description of the number of days and the fact that a child exists.
Also, the trial never actually happened. The judge had us wait for 5 hours while he handled another case, and then refused to hear testimony or review evidence and sent the witnesses home. He simply stated that they both produced half a child and 50% was what each was getting. DH wanted 80% with BM to have EOW because BM is completely nuts, and BM wanted 100% with DH to have absolutely no visitation well also because she's completely nuts.