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Actually, You Don’T Have To Show Your Work: The Arkansas Court Of Appeals Tells Trial Courts That When They Award Attorneys’ Fees In Domestic Relations Cases, They Need Not Explain The Basis For The Awards Or The Basis For The Amount Of The Awards, Terrence Cain

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Arkansas follows the “American Rule,” which is that each litigant is responsible for his or her own attorneys’ fees unless a statute says otherwise. This rule is not without exceptions, however, and one such exception is the “domestic relations exception,” which says that Arkansas’s trial courts have the inherent authority to award attorneys’ fees in domestic relations cases. Between 2016 and 2021, the Arkansas Court of Appeals decided cases with attorneys’ fees awards ranging from $14,190 to $36,284.60, which one judge of that court remarked evidenced an ever-escalating amount of fee awards in domestic relations cases.

At one point, when …

Family Law–Divorce–Constitutionality Of Arkansas Property Settlement And Alimony Statutes, Gordon W. Hawthorne

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.