How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Akron Ohio?  - Akron Divorce Lawyer | Divorce Attorney Akron

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to find the best divorce lawyer in Akron, Ohio There are a large number of divorce lawyers in Akron who will do an every bit as great undertaking for you. It would be out of the question to decide on which one is the “very best.”

The correct concern for you, the Akron divorce consumer, is precisely how to identify just one of those Akron best divorce lawyers at the correct standards of representation and also expense for the realities of your particular case – while avoiding all of the common, and also sometimes unsafe, pitfalls of the Akron divorce lawyer hiring choice.

If you recognize what those pitfalls are (I will inform you in this article) and also if you have the appropriate attitude, specifically that you wish to make your Akron divorce lawyer fit your situation and also not enable the attorney to compel your situation to fit his/her rigid practice profile, then you enhance significantly your chances of nailing the Akron divorce lawyer employing choice. Getting you through that selection efficiently is the purpose of this blog post.

To begin with, let’s list the 4 factors to steer clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is conceivable, repeat POSSIBLE, to download totally free family law forms from Ohio’s judicial council or family court internet sites. Those totally free divorce forms will be blank, of course. You can then attempt to finish and also record the forms at your local Summit County divorce court on your own without professional aid. This is feasible – but highly improbable, extremely challenging, complicated, discouraging and also extremely slow.

Do it yourself divorce would be effectively impossible, and also not sensible even to attempt, in any kind of  complicated or contested family law matter. It would be highly improbable to be successful if you have minor children of the marriage or have any kind of assets or financial obligations to be listed in the case or have custody, visitation or assistance agreements in your matter. It would definitely be ill-advised in a case entailing domestic violence. Do it yourself would additionally be difficult if you work or if you put any kind of worth on your own time. Family law documents and also processeses are made by lawyers to puzzle you to make sure that you work with – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I don’t spend too much time on the do it yourself risk. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that people who start the divorce procedure with the intent to attempt to get a totally free divorce are most likely to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce regardless of what. Somehow, possibly financial, there is absolutely nothing I have actually had the ability to find to encourage them not to.

DIY in Family Law is consistently fake economy. You WILL probably screw it up, and also screwed-up cases are much more troublesome and also costly to remedy and also complete. Don’t play this game. The system is made by lawyers to puzzle you and also compel you to employ a divorce lawyer. There are currently economical options readily available– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

2. Avoid Traditional Akron Family Law Attorneys if Your Case is Likely to be Uncontested:

An uncontested divorce is just one in which the participants will not be disputing any kind of concerns, including the divorce itself. The participants don’t have to be pleased and also they don’t have to care for each other. They are either entirely or mostly in agreement on all concerns and also are sensible enough to realize that conventional full-representation divorce lawyers (with huge retainers and also billable hrs) would be the only winners if they contested relatively insignificant concerns in their divorce.

Standard full representation by a local Akron divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all parts of your divorce litigation. It is highly likely to be a very good professional service, but it is very costly.

If you have a contested case, a complicated case, a high-value case or a case that involves domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a Akron divorce lawyer is NOT to be refrained from. It is a requirement.

A disputed case signifies that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complicated case includes legal complexities such as tax concerns, current business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous other intricate legal scenarios. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is large. There is no specific dollar limit. Definitely, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or higher, that is a high-value case.

If you suspect that you have a contested,complex or high-value case, you do. Hire an expert and also expensive Akron divorce lawyer for full traditional representation. Search for a certified Family Law specialist. You will not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a contested, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT need traditional full representation by a Akron divorce lawyer. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a Akron divorce lawyer ends up being a threat to your financial position. Avoid it.

Obviously, if you call or email a traditional Akron divorce lawyer, they will not tell you that you do not need their full representation service. In fact, they will attempt to frighten the crap out of you by advising you that you undeniably are in need of their service which your case will get messed up without it.

That might happen– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll inform you next how to stay clear of potentially 90+% of the possible risk of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T employ a traditional Akron divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case could also potentially get messed up if you DID employ a full representation Akron divorce attorney. That’s also not likely, but it could possibly occur.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY occur if you employ a traditional full representation Akron divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case may be dealt with effectively, but you will overbuy excessive services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no need for that to occur anymore. Your mothers and fathers had few other options on their family law employing options. Your grandparents had no other options. You have numerous legitimate options to make your Akron uncontested divorce lawyer employing selection based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Akron divorce lawyers. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the most significant threat you deal with in your employing selection in terms of damage to your future legal and financial security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is extremely unsafe to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills provide slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, charges lower than MOST lawyers, no legal suggestions, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance, no knowledge of Summit County divorce policies, no local knowledge about Summit County rules of court, local Summit County documents, local practices or the policies of individual local judges in the Akron local area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a totally uncontrolled Wild-West industry widespread with all type of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, but what you get for that $300 fee is incredibly little– simply prepared Ohio divorce forms. Any other services offered are all up-sold on the basis that once they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore money already spent? You are at their mercy and you are entirely unguarded. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a very good review of just a few of the more typical frauds and up-sells to be experienced in the online divorce industry.

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll always be dealing with low-level, inexperienced, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center staff members and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. No one will conduct any type of analysis on your case to secure you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Client assistance will be awful since it does not have to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to meet with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none of them are located in Akron or perhaps in Ohio

If you work with an online divorce mill believing you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up paying for their mistakes for years, that is NOT a cheap divorce!

4. Avoid Me-Too Lawyer Advertising Platforms:

Me-Too Lawyer Advertising Platforms are online lawyer directories like Avvo, FindLaw, LegalZoom, Justia, Google Screened, Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) and now even Yelp. This is the most recent pitfall to steer clear of in your Akron divorce lawyer employing choice.

Nevertheless, the possible damage here is not huge– nowhere near the damage done regularly by non-lawyer online divorce mills or indeed the damage likely to be done by you to your own case with DIY divorce.

If you work with a Akron divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending on just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as terribly as if you had actually hired a traditional full representation Akron family law attorney directly.

Obviously, you don’t want to employ a traditional full representation Akron divorce attorney you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the important factor here is that you don’t want to employ a traditional full representation Akron divorce attorney to manage your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The risk with employing a Akron divorce attorney that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a below average Akron divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Akron divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your trade but does nothing to set apart himself or herself from the Akron lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the exceptional resolution to your case. You don’t wish to have that lawyer.

You would like a Akron divorce lawyer who is imaginative, vibrant, distinct, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Akron divorce lawyer to oversee your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even look after his/her own business interests aggressively and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Akron lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

Mass-lawyer finder platforms like Avvo are cost-free to join, which is why every divorce lawyer in Summit County will have registered. So you need to not disqualify a Akron divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

Nevertheless, you need to not assume that such a Akron divorce lawyer is extremely effective or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are cost-free for the lawyer to enroll in, the lawyer will need to then start to pay continually increasing charges on a bid-basis, always contending versus other local Summit County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s website. If that lawyer does not pay more, s/he’ll be on page 3 or 5 of the mass-lawyer website in even a medium-sized town. If that lawyer does not keep bidding up his/her charges, she’ll not get adequate trade to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top extremely few lawyers in each town taking almost all cases– based upon just how much marketing charges they can pay– not based upon how good they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to fit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your case is the amount of money s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and distinctiveness of his/her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Akron pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s website and will get more clients, but his/her expenses of doing business will constantly increase while his/her charges are relatively set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Akron divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will always need increasingly more lower revenue cases simply to keep up with sales expenses. You don’t desire that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and financial future.

And yes, that lawyer is going to utilize the same brain to look after your case as s/he used to screw his/her own business into the ground.

How to Find the Best Akron Divorce Lawyer – Akron Divorce Lawyer | Divorce Attorney Akron

So above are 4 problems to stay away from: do it yourself divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and uninspiring me-too drone lawyers who are truly bad at law practice business.

So what do you actually look for in a Akron divorce attorney?

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by providing you 2 remarkable data that I did not believe when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to maximize them in your Akron divorce lawyer selection choice:

1. There is a glut of lawyers on the market and it’s serious. According to the ABA National Lawyer Population Survey, in 2017, the whole legal profession lost some 1400 jobs while almost 20,000 brand new lawyers have been added – just in 2017. And the ABA has just certified a huge new law school down in Texas. And this has been trending for years. And all of this surplus of supply while the demand for legal services has been flat or, as in the case of family law, diminishing because of DIY divorce and the overwhelming success of fraudulent and incompetent online divorce mills (both caused by the Internet).
2. From 1988 to 2012, the average solo lawyer practitioner’s yearly income, after adjusting for inflation, dropped from $70,747 to $49,130. Read that last sentence again. This is based on published data from the IRS compiled from solo lawyer practitioner tax returns for the years specified. The legal profession is in serious economic decline. More so in areas of consumer law, like uncontested divorce, where the Internet has reduced the knowledge gap between lawyers and consumers.

What to Look For:

Business-savvy lawyers who want to participate in the divorce industry are under considerable price and business-model pressure right now. Take advantage! You want to hire a Akron divorce lawyer who has responded to this professional crisis in the following ways.

You want as many of the following factors as you can find in one Akron divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Akron divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this denotes that you only buy the legal services your case actually requires. You will usually do your own filing of docs at court and schedule the service of filed docs on your spouse/partner. The divorce lawyer will examine your docs before they are filed, identify problem concerns in your case and recommend the best options based upon legal suggestions and local knowledge. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can tell they don’t understand or don’t desire you to understand, simply hang up. They don’t yet get it. Move on. Don’t educate them.
3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and enterall of the information in your case.  This not only saves money and time, but it in fact empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain your case. Also, there’s no 50-page paper copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to complete in the lawyer’s waiting area.
4. Uses other cloud-based software and apps – listen for buzz phrases like “client portal” and “virtual law practice.” Ask about e-filing and listen closely to determine if the lawyer even knows what it is.
5. Doesn’t have a fancy office in a downtown high-rise or across from the courthouse. You don’t want to pay those rents. This is even more so during C-19. You’re looking for a lawyer in a strip mall or even one who works at home and has one or more shared office arrangements for client meetings. Don’t use a lawyer who has obviously big expenses – YOU pay them!
6. Look for a competitive edge. Look for a lawyer who understands what is going on around him or her in his or her chosen profession. The practice of law is legal education, knowledge and experience attached to a business model. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services or online divorce interviews and they act like law practice is ONLY a noble profession and not a competitive business, hang up. Don’t educate them. They don’t yet get it.
7. Specialization – You don’t want to hire a lawyer who is a jack-of-all-trades on the basis that s/he might get hired for something. There are many different areas of law practice. They are very different from each other. Specialization is the name of the game today. Look at the lawyer’s website. It will tell you whether s/he is trying to get work in numerous areas of practice. It doesn’t matter if the lawyer handles maybe 2 areas of law, particularly if they are both areas of consumer law, such as divorce and bankruptcy. However, if you see that the primary practice area is DUI or personal injury or criminal law and family law appears to be an add-on, move on. Don’t explain.  Just move on. They do not handle enough family law to be any good.  They use family law as an unwanted add-on.  They will not be experienced enough and they will have to charge you a lot because you will be one of very few family law clients. Also, personal injury law paydays are huge and criminal law cases are critical to someone’s personal freedom. Where do you think your family law case will fit into that lawyer’s busy day?
8. Look for a spark – You are looking for a lawyer who has positioned himself or herself in such a way as to convince you that s/he is the unique local divorce lawyer in Akron that is best suited to resolving your case and your specific problems. This is hard to define, but you will understand if that lawyer makes this connection with you. If there is no such spark on the first exposure, there never will be. Move on.
9. Look for Unique Action – Obviously, this does not involve ONLY standing in line with every other lawyer at Avvo or similar me-too lawyer platforms. Avvo owns all of that attorney’s blog posts and may control his or her entire marketing outreach. Avvo takes money from that lawyer in order to sign up more lawyers in Akron lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Akron. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Akron. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Akron has a 1-800-DIVORCE.

Divorce and Other Family Law Services Are Available Through 1-800-DIVORCE in Most Medium to Large Cities, Including the Following Cities, As Well As in Akron:

Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Erie, Toledo, Detroit, Warren, Sterling Heights, Farmington Hills, Ann Arbor, Dayton, Buffalo, Fort Wayne, Lansing, Cincinnati, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Lexington, Washington, D. C., Alexandria, Baltimore, Louisville, Syracuse, Allentown, Chicago, Joliet, Philadelphia, Naperville, Winston-Salem, Milwaukee