Dear Clients and Friends,
Most people find divorce to be a complicated and confusing process, and they’re grateful to have an experienced family lawyer to help guide them through it.
You’ll need to make a lot of decisions that will affect the rest of your life – at a time when emotions may overwhelm your ability to think clearly.
Obtaining a good divorce lawyer is often in your best interests – especially if your divorce is complicated, contested, involves children, you have significant assets, or if your soon-to-be ex-spouse has hired a divorce lawyer.
Here are five reasons to consider hiring a divorce lawyer rather than representing yourself in court.
1. A divorce lawyer can suggest options you didn’t even know existed.
A divorce lawyer can evaluate your situation and let you know the likely outcome if you take your case to court. Based on their experience with the judge and similar cases to yours, they’ll be able to offer a variety of legally-acceptable options to settle your case.
If you and your spouse represent yourselves, you may agree on items that the judge will reject; when that happens, you’re causing more work and more delay for yourself, your spouse, the judge, and the court system.
A lawyer will help you create a reasonable settlement proposal; if the proposal is coming from the other side, your lawyer will let you know whether to settle, make a counter-proposal, or fight it out in court.
2. A divorce lawyer can help you to Avoid Delays.
Though a person may use court provided documents to file for divorce, there can still be problems with completing the proper forms and providing adequate information and documentation. A person who goes to court without legal counsel may find that problems with the paperwork or other issues may result in a delay in the court’s ruling.
This may substantially delay the date that the divorce is final. By hiring an attorney, a person can avoid paperwork or other problems that could cause a delay and get the divorce completed as quickly as possible.
3. A divorce lawyer can help you to Reduce Stress.
Divorce is a stressful time for everyone involved. Hiring an attorney to complete a divorce is one way to reduce the stress of the divorce. While the attorney will need to gather information from you, he or she will take care of almost everything else, allowing you more time to take care of yourself and your family.
You have enough things to worry about when you are getting divorced, let an attorney take care of the legal work.
4. A divorce lawyer is familiar with family law and the family law courts.
In court, self-represented litigants are not given any special treatment; judges hold them to the same standards as the lawyer for the other side. Most judges are fairly patient people, but if you don’t know the law – or what documents you need, or even what to do next – you may be pushing the judge’s patience past the breaking point.
The more annoyed a judge is, the less sympathetic he/she is likely to be. Family lawyers know what to say to make your case seem reasonable.
Lawyers who focus on areas outside family law hire a family lawyer when they’re getting a divorce; they recognize that they’ll be out of their depth when faced with a divorce lawyer who routinely practices family law. It is not likely that you’ll be able to adequately prepare to face the court process – and your spouse’s lawyer – by yourself.
To make matters worse, you can jeopardize your entire case by saying or doing things incorrectly.
5. A divorce lawyer can help you focus on the “Big Picture.”
While you may be solely focused on “winning” the case, a family lawyer will concentrate on creating the best deal possible – which may mean helping you to compromise on some issues so that you can get more of your “must haves.”
In divorce, a good deal is one where both sides gave up some of what they had hoped to gain, but both can live with the settlement – literally. Family lawyers represent individuals with finite resources, not big corporations who have unlimited money to throw at a case, so they know cost is important.
A good divorce lawyer will advise you not to waste your money by fighting over every issue, and they can help you set your priorities so you end up with more of what you actually need – even if you have to give up some of what you want to achieve it.
We invite you to check us out by calling (310) 550 0110 for a free initial phone evaluation of your matter.
Best,
Ron