Serving Louisville, Kentucky & Southern Indiana
(502) 379-4963Practice Area — Divorce
From straightforward uncontested matters to multi-year, multi-asset contested litigation — with 17 years of Jefferson County courtroom experience.
Most people approaching divorce believe the process will be essentially fair — that a judge will look at both sides, see who contributed what, and divide things accordingly. They believe their spouse's promise to 'keep it amicable' means the complexity is manageable. And they believe that most attorneys are equipped to handle what they're facing, so the choice of who to hire is mostly a matter of cost and convenience. Every one of those beliefs will cost you if they go unchallenged.
A divorce attorney who doesn't have a forensic understanding of finances is operating at a disadvantage from the first disclosure. They hire experts. They defer to experts. They present what experts tell them to present. That's not incompetence — it's the standard model. But it means the attorney representing you doesn't fully understand the numbers they're arguing about.
Thomas Banks isn't built that way.
Before law school, Thomas worked in accounting and database management. He can read a financial disclosure the way a forensic accountant reads it — not the way an attorney who took one business law course reads it. In a contested divorce in Kentucky, that difference determines whether overvalued liabilities get challenged, whether hidden compensation surfaces, and whether your spouse's attorney's "agreed" settlement proposal is actually designed to benefit your spouse.
That background, combined with his standing as a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers — a credential held by fewer than 1,600 attorneys worldwide and recognized as the highest standard of distinction in matrimonial law — means Thomas has spent seventeen years handling the full spectrum of divorce: from straightforward uncontested matters to multi-year, multi-asset contested litigation.
Super Lawyers has recognized him every year since 2015. Martindale-Hubbell has given him their highest possible rating — AV Preeminent — for both legal ability and professional ethics. He graduated first in his class at Cornell. None of that is resume padding. It's the reason his clients don't get surprised.
Contested divorces don't start contested. They start amicable, cooperative, and reasonable — right up to the moment one party realizes that being cooperative is producing a worse outcome than being strategic.
The attorney you have at that inflection point determines everything. If you hired someone to file paperwork, you're renegotiating representation in the middle of a negotiation. If you hired Thomas, you were ready before the first document was exchanged.
Uncontested divorces — where both parties genuinely agree on all terms — move faster with an attorney who knows how to draft clean, enforceable agreements that don't leave ambiguities for future litigation. Contested divorces require someone who has been in Jefferson County courtrooms long enough to know the difference between a case that should settle and a case that needs to be tried.
Either way, the stakes are the same: the financial decisions made in this process will define your life for the next two to three decades.
When you have Thomas Banks in your corner, you aren't managing complexity alone. You have an attorney who personally analyzes your financial disclosures before any expert is brought in, who understands how businesses are valued and how those valuations can be challenged, and who has spent seventeen years in Kentucky family courts developing the kind of judgment that doesn't come from reading case law.
You have someone who has seen every delay tactic, every valuation manipulation, every pressure play designed to push you toward a settlement that benefits the other side — and who knows what to do about each one.
The decision to hire the right attorney doesn't feel like a gamble. It feels like taking something this important seriously.
An uncontested divorce means you and your spouse agree on the terms — property division, custody, support, everything. You're essentially collaborating on the paperwork. A contested divorce is what most people imagine: the two of you disagree on one or more major issues, and the court may need to decide. The distinction matters because uncontested cases typically take 30–60 days and cost significantly less, while contested cases often run 6–18 months and considerably more. The cost difference reflects the complexity, not the lawyer's billing appetite.
You can file the paperwork yourself — it's called pro se representation. But here's what you can't do alone: accurately calculate child support under Kentucky or Indiana guidelines, divide a 401(k) without triggering immediate tax liability, draft a parenting plan that actually holds up in court, or anticipate what the other side will claim. People who tried DIY divorce and made mistakes on asset division or support calculation often pay more to fix it than hiring an attorney upfront would have cost.
In Kentucky or Indiana, an uncontested divorce with no children is typically 30–60 days from filing to final decree. If children are involved, add 60–90 days because parenting plans require more judicial review. Contested cases depend entirely on what you're fighting about. A disagreement over assets alone might resolve in 4–6 months. Adding custody disputes, hidden assets, or a business valuation can stretch it to 12–18 months. The timeline isn't controlled by the lawyer's schedule — it's controlled by discovery, court dockets, and whether the other side cooperates.
Not necessarily. If you both genuinely agree on property division, custody, and support — and neither of you has undisclosed income or assets — you can use a single attorney to draft an agreement you both approved. However, most bar ethics rules require the non-represented spouse to review the agreement with their own attorney before signing (or to waive that review in writing). What typically works best is one attorney drafting the agreement, then the other spouse's attorney reviewing it. Quick, efficient, mutual protection.
Filing first — being the 'petitioner' rather than the 'respondent' — gives you one advantage: you frame the issues in the petition. Beyond that? No. Both sides have equal procedural rights. The court isn't thinking, 'Well, he filed first so he must be right.' What matters is evidence, agreement, and how contested the issues actually are. If you're thinking about filing first to get ahead of your spouse — that's a tactical question that depends on your specific situation and something we evaluate together.
Mediation works even when you don't get along — that's the whole point. You hire a neutral third party to help you and your spouse negotiate the major issues. Mediation typically costs a fraction of full litigation and resolves the majority of cases. The major catch: mediation only works if both sides come to the table in good faith. If one spouse is hiding assets or isn't genuinely interested in settling, mediation fails. We screen for that before recommending it.
The decision to file depends on your specific situation: Has the other side signaled they're going to file first? Do you need immediate protection orders or temporary support? Are assets at risk? Are there tax implications from timing? None of those questions have a universal answer — they're all case-specific. What I can tell you is that waiting rarely improves your position. If you know divorce is coming, the advantages of filing first typically outweigh the disadvantages.
This is the most common hesitation I hear, and I understand it — nobody wants to be blamed for 'starting a war.' But here's the reality: if your spouse is serious about divorce, they're likely hiring an attorney too. Not hiring one yourself doesn't make them calm down; it just leaves you undefended. Hiring a skilled attorney is not the same as being aggressive — it's being prepared. The court doesn't penalize people for getting legal representation; it penalizes people for dishonesty and bad faith.
Yes — settlement, mediation, and collaborative divorce all keep you out of court. About 85% of divorce cases settle before trial. Trials are expensive, they're public record, and they take months. Most people and most attorneys prefer to negotiate. That said, if the other side won't negotiate reasonably, you need to be ready for court. The threat of court sometimes motivates settlement. But you should enter negotiations assuming you might go to trial — that's the only way to be in a real negotiating position.
Debts incurred during the marriage are typically divided the same way assets are — either equitably or according to a settlement agreement. But here's the part most people miss: the divorce decree doesn't erase debt from the creditor's records. If the divorce says 'your spouse pays the credit card debt,' but they don't, the creditor can still come after you. That's why divorce agreements need to include indemnification language — legal language that protects you if the other side doesn't pay. It's a detail most DIY divorces botch.
Schedule a discovery call with Thomas. No pressure, no sales pitch — just a direct conversation about your situation, what's at stake, and whether Thomas is the right fit.
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