How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Athens Georgia?  - Best Affordable Divorce Attorney Athens

It’s a trick question. You do not need to find the best divorce lawyer in Athens, Georgia There are several divorce attorneys in Athens who would do an equally fine undertaking for you. It would definitely be impossible to establish which one is the “absolute best.”

The correct concern for you, the Athens divorce consumer, is the way to discover one of those Athens best divorce attorneys at the perfect standards of assistance and also expense for the facts of your certain situation – while keeping away from every one of the usual, and also sometimes harmful, mistakes of the Athens divorce attorney selection decision.

If you understand what those mistakes are (I will certainly inform you in this blog post) and also if you have the correct perspective, namely that you intend to make your Athens divorce attorney fit your instance and also not permit the lawyer to compel your instance to fit his or her rigid practice profile, then you enhance considerably your possibilities of nailing the Athens divorce attorney employing decision. Getting you through that choice successfully is the purpose of this article.

To start with, let’s specify the 4 factors to steer clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is feasible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download cost-free family law documents from Georgia’s judicial council or family court web sites. Those cost-free divorce documents will be blank, obviously. You can at that point try to complete and also file the documents at your neighborhood Clarke County divorce court by yourself without expert assistance. This is feasible – nevertheless highly improbable, very challenging, confusing, frustrating and also very lengthy.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be practically unfeasible, and also not sensible even to try, in any kind of  complex or contended family law process. It would certainly be highly improbable to be effective if you have minor children of the marriage or have any kind of property or financial debts to be listed in case or have custody, visitation or assistance agreements in your proceedings. It would definitely be ill-advised in a case including domestic violence. Do it yourself would certainly likewise be difficult if you work or if you put any sort of value on your own time. Family law forms and also procedures are developed by attorneys to puzzle you so that you work with – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not spend excessive time on the DIY threat. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that folks who start the divorce procedure with the intent to try to get a cost-free divorce are most likely to  try DIY divorce regardless of what. For one reason or another, possibly economic, there is nothing I‘ve had the ability to uncover to persuade them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is consistently false affordability. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and also screwed-up matters are much more difficult and also expensive to deal with and also conclude. Don’t play this game. The system is developed by attorneys to puzzle you and also compel you to employ a divorce attorney. There are currently cost-effective alternatives offered– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

 

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

An uncontested divorce is just one in which the parties will not be disputing any kind of problems, including the divorce itself. The parties do not have to be cheerful and also they do not have to like each other. They are either completely or mostly in agreement on all problems and also are sensible enough to understand that traditional full-representation divorce attorneys (with significant retainers and also billable hrs) would certainly be the only winners if they contended fairly inconsequential problems in their divorce.

Best Affordable Divorce Attorney  AthensStandard complete representation by a neighborhood Athens divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce matter. It is highly likely to be a very good service, however it is high priced.

If you have a contested case, a complex case, a high-value case or a case that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Athens divorce attorney is NOT to be evaded. It is a necessity.

A contested case indicates that you and also your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the case. A complex case consists of legal intricacies such as tax problems, active business problems, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of many additional complicated legal scenarios. A high-value case means that your marital estate is very large. There is no particular dollar limit. Definitely, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or greater, that is a high-value case.

If you believe that you have a contested,complex or high-value case, you do. Employ an expert and also expensive Athens divorce attorney for complete traditional representation. Look for a certified Family Law specialist. You will certainly not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a contested, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT need traditional complete representation by a Athens divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Athens divorce attorney becomes a threat to your economic position. Avoid it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional Athens divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their complete representation service. In fact, they will try to frighten the crap out of you by advising you that you without a doubt are in need of their service which your case will get screwed up without it.

That could happen– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll tell you next how to stay away from possibly 90+% of the possible threat of getting your case screwed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Athens divorce lawyer on a complete representation basis.

Your case might also possibly get screwed up if you DID employ a complete representation Athens divorce lawyer. That’s also not likely, but it could take place.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY take place if you employ a conventional complete representation Athens divorce lawyer to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case might be handled effectively, but you will overbuy unneeded services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to take place nowadays. Your parents had few other alternatives on their family law employing options. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have lots of legitimate alternatives to make your Athens uncontested divorce attorney employing choice based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Athens divorce attorneys. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the biggest danger you deal with in your employing choice in regards to damage to your future legal and economic security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a big industry. And it is very harmful to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills use slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software application, charges lower than MOST attorneys, no legal advice, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of Clarke County divorce procedures, no regional understanding about Clarke County rules of court, regional Clarke County forms, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the Athens region and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a totally uncontrolled Wild-West industry rampant with all kinds of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, but what you get for that $300 fee is extremely little– simply prepared Georgia divorce documents. Any other services offered are all up-sold on the basis that once they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – leave cash already spent? You are at their whim and you are completely unprotected. And they realize it!

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

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll always be dealing with low-level, untrained, disinterested, high turn-over personnel, call center employees and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will perform any kind of analysis on your case to secure you and any minor children from future legal or financial damage. Client assistance will be awful due to the fact that it doesn’t have to be anything else. You will never be able to meet with anyone at an online divorce mill as it is most likely that none lie in Athens or perhaps in Georgia

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 errors for years, that is NOT a low-cost divorce!

4. Avoid Me-Too Lawyer Advertising Platforms:

Me-Too Lawyer Advertising Platforms are online lawyer directory sites like Avvo, FindLaw, LegalZoom, Justia, Google Screened, Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) and now even Yelp. This is the latest risk to steer clear of in your Athens divorce lawyer employing decision.

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

If you work with a Athens divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to pay too much to some extent, depending on just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as badly as if you had actually employed a conventional complete representation Athens family law lawyer directly.

Obviously, you do not want to employ a conventional complete representation Athens divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the crucial aspect here is that you do not want to employ a conventional complete representation Athens divorce lawyer to handle your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

Best Affordable Divorce Attorney  AthensThe threat with employing a Athens divorce lawyer that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a mediocre Athens divorce lawyer– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Athens divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your trade but does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Athens lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the standout solution to your case. You do not want that lawyer.

You would like a Athens divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, unique, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Athens divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even care for his or her own law practice interests strongly and decisively? You’re searching for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Athens lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and doing nothing else.

Mass-lawyer finder platforms like Avvo are free of charge to sign up with, which is why every divorce lawyer in Clarke County will have registered. So you must not disqualify a Athens divorce lawyer just because s/he has an Avvo account.

Nevertheless, you must not expect that such a Athens divorce lawyer is very clever or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of charge for the lawyer to join, the lawyer needs to then start to pay constantly increasing charges on a bid-basis, always battling against other regional Clarke County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer doesn’t pay more, s/he’ll be on page 3 or 5 of the mass-lawyer site in even a medium-sized town. If that lawyer doesn’t keep bidding up his or her charges, she’ll not get adequate trade to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top very few attorneys in each town taking almost all the business– 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 suit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your trade is the quantity of cash s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and distinctiveness of his or her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Athens pays more to the mass-lawyer finder company and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s site and will get more clients, but his or her costs of acquiring cases will continuously rise while his or her charges are fairly set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Athens divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always need a growing number of lower revenue cases simply to keep up with sales costs. You do not desire that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and economic future.

And yes, that lawyer is going to utilize the same brain to care for your case as s/he utilized to screw his or her own law practice into the ground.

How to Find the Best Athens Divorce Lawyer – Best Affordable Divorce Attorney Athens

So above are 4 factors to abstain from: DIY divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and boring me-too drone attorneys who are actually bad at business.

So what do you in fact try to find in a Athens divorce lawyer?

Best Affordable Divorce Attorney  AthensBefore I inform you, I want to set the stage by giving you two remarkable data that I did not accept when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to maximize them in your Athens divorce lawyer selection decision:

  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 Athens 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 Athens divorce attorney:

  1. Licensed local Athens divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
  2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this signifies that you only buy the legal services your case 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 evaluate your docs before they are filed, recognize problem issues in your case and suggest the very best alternatives based upon legal advice and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can determine they do not know or do not desire you to know, simply hang up. They do not 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 personal data in your case.  This not only conserves money and time, but it in fact empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all informationin your case. Likewise, there’s no 50-page paper copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to get through in the lawyer’s waiting room.
  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 Athens 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 Athens lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Athens. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Athens. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Athens 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 Athens:

Sandy Springs, Atlanta, Macon, Augusta, Chattanooga, Columbus, Knoxville, Charlotte, Savannah, Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery, North Charleston, Murfreesboro, Charleston, Winston-Salem, High Point, Nashville, Tallahassee, Greensboro, Fayetteville, Jacksonville, Lexington, Clarksville, Cary, Durham, Raleigh, Gainesville, Wilmington, Louisville

 

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If you’ve made the difficult personal decision to terminate your marriage or to seek other critical family law relief, you should proceed at your pace and at your comfort level.

So continue to think and please keep us in mind. We know you’ll remember 1-800-DIVORCE.

Remember also that you want a bold competitive divorce lawyer who stands out from the me-too lawyer-crowd. You don’t want a lawyer to look after your legal and economic future if s/he doesn’t even compete and look after his or her own future.

…including emergency orders, disclosure laws, negotiation of settlements and trial work but also in mediation or collaborative law – should your case be suitable for those methods either now or later on.

Non-lawyer online divorce providers only provide the most basic divorce papers. For you to obtain any additional services through a non-lawyer, they would have to make a cold referral to a lawyer in your area.

Why not start off with the best divorce lawyer near me, such as your local 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer, who will already know the facts and issues of your case if additional services become necessary?

Use 1-800-DIVORCE to find the best divorce lawyer near me.

Your local 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer is required to maintain a professional and confidential relationship with you.  S/he is required to handle your case with the highest ethical standards.  S/he is required to take continuing legal education and professional responsibility courses.

Non-lawyer online divorce providers are NOT staffed by lawyers.  They are not licensed or bonded.  They get on-the-job training only! You will have no effective recourse should you be treated dishonestly or incompetently by an online provider.

Search for “online divorce problems” and you will have plenty to read.  Many online providers are truly terrible.  A few are downright fraudulent. If you get caught with a bad one, you will need a lawyer, and much more money, just to get your case sorted.

Don’t take that risk when a local solution exists at a similar cost.  Use 1-800-DIVORCE to find the best divorce lawyer near me.

A non-lawyer online divorce provider will likely be located far away and will be clueless about your state’s laws and your local Rules of Court. Online divorce providers claim to know how to handle divorces in all 3000+ counties in the US – an impossibility.

You can make an appointment to see your local 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer if the need arises. 

If you hire a non-lawyer online divorce provider, it will be the blind leading the blind. And when things go wrong, which they will, you will never get face time with that online provider and you will rarely be able to reach them on the phone or by email. Find a local divorce lawyer. Find the best divorce lawyer near me.

If you hire an unregulated online divorce outfit for $300-$1000 and end up paying for their mistakes forever, that’s NOT a cheap divorce.

Divorce is tough enough already! Don’t go it alone. Find the best  divorce lawyer near me through 1-800-DIVORCE.

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