April 2025 | Evan Williams
The Attorney: Autumn Beck Blackledge
The Niche: Military
Autumn Beck Blackledge was inspired to pursue a career in law, she says, by the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. After earning a law degree from Florida State University, she worked in insurance defense, personal injury, employment law, and as a lobbyist in Tallahassee.
It wasn’t until she started her own family and moved back to practice in her hometown of Pensacola, that family law beckoned. After taking a low-cost divorce case to help a client in need, that opened a door to more. And with the sizeable military presence surrounding Pensacola, she ultimately became well-versed in military divorce cases.
Born among a family of entrepreneurs, Blackledge started her own firm in 2014, specializing in family law. She found that the great variety of the work suits her and has been in practice now going on 25 years.
“Some days you’re a negotiator, sometimes you’re a mediator, sometimes you’re a litigator, sometimes you’re in deep research,” she says. “You’re in trial a lot. Sometimes you’re reviewing contracts. You have a transactional side to it, too. It kind of hits all the things that I love about practicing law.”
Military divorce cases present their own challenges, especially when kids are involved and one or both parents live overseas or could be transferred between bases from time to time. When she spoke with Florida Trend Blackledge was working to get a client’s child back from Belize, where she says the child was illegally taken after her client and his wife divorced. The case falls under the Hague Adoption Convention treaty, which for signatory countries provides a legal means to return abducted children to their home country.
Blackledge has taken several Hague treaty-related cases, which aren’t the norm. “We are working with the State Department and other federal officials to try to get those kids returned to the United States, where they belong,” Blackledge says.
She approaches each divorce case aiming for the ideal — a “win-win” for both sides. She tends to avoid clients who might be “out for blood or revenge,” a tactic antithetical to her own personality, she adds, not to mention her clients’ emotional and financial health. “A lot of cases have at least a hearing,” she says. “But ultimately, I think probably over 90% of our cases are going to settle at some point before a final trial.”
Blackledge and her husband (a Pensacola firefighter) have four adult children and a high school senior. One of their sons, a member of the U.S. Navy, was sequestered in England during the COVID-19 pandemic. The experience sparked her empathy for couples who share children across sometimes vast distances. Video calls proved a poor solution.
“He’s walking around the barracks and the internet’s going in and out,” she remembers. “And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Ashton, just sit there and let us look at your face. We miss you.’ So that’s kind of our real-life military connection.”
Divorce Costs in Florida
- Average attorney’s fees: $11,000 to $14,000 and up for a contested divorce. Costs can easily spiral upwards. The national average cost for a divorce with children and an alimony dispute is $17,850.
- Average that Floridians pay for divorce expenses outside attorney fees: $1,350
- Average for an uncontested divorce: $4,000 to $5,000
- Cost of a do-it-yourself online divorce: $150 to $750
- Florida divorce attorney average hourly rate: $339. Rates vary based on location, experience and other factors.
Source: Martindale-Nolo Research 2015 and 2019 divorce studies; Lawyers.com; Clio.com