How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Atlanta Georgia?  - Atlanta Divorce Lawyer | Atlanta Family Law Attorney

It’s a trick question. You do not want to find the best divorce lawyer or attorney in Atlanta, Georgia There are numerous divorce lawyers in Atlanta that would do an equally good job for you. It would be impossible to figure out which one is the “very best.”

The legitimate question for you, the Atlanta divorce client, is exactly how to locate just one of those Atlanta top-notch divorce lawyers at the perfect standards of assistance and also expense for the facts of your particular circumstances – while avoiding all of the usual, and also often unsafe, mistakes of the Atlanta divorce lawyer hiring choice.

If you recognize what those mistakes are (I will certainly tell you in this short article) and also if you have the right perspective, namely that you intend to make your Atlanta divorce lawyer fit your case and also not permit the attorney to force your case to fit his/her inflexible practice profile, then you raise greatly your opportunities of nailing the Atlanta divorce lawyer employing choice. Getting you through that selection effectively is the objective of this article.

First, let’s mention the 4 factors to stay away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire cost-free family law forms from Georgia’s judicial council or family court websites. Those cost-free divorce forms will be blank, obviously. You can at that point try to finish and also file the forms at your neighborhood Fulton County divorce court by yourself without professional help. This is possible – but highly unlikely, extremely challenging, complicated, aggravating and also very lengthy.

DIY divorce would be effectively unfeasible, and also not wise even to attempt, in any  complicated or contested family law matter. It would be highly unlikely to be a success if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any assets or financial debts to be listed in the event or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your proceedings. It would definitely be unwise in a matter entailing domestic violence. DIY would additionally be challenging if you have a job or if you place any sort of value on your own time. Family law documents and also processeses are created by lawyers to perplex you to ensure that you work with – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not spend way 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 folks that begin the divorce procedure with the intent to try to obtain a free divorce are going to  try Do-It-Yourself divorce regardless of what. For one reason or another, most likely economic, there is nothing I have actually been able to discover to encourage them not to.

DIY in Family Law is consistently false affordability. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and also screwed-up proceedings are far more challenging and also very expensive to deal with and also conclude. Do not play this game. The system is created by lawyers to perplex you and also force you to hire a divorce lawyer. There are now economical alternatives readily available– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

 

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the litigants will not be challenging any problems, including the divorce itself. The litigants do not have to be pleased and also they do not have to care for each other. They are either entirely or mainly in agreement on all problems and also are wise enough to recognize that traditional full-representation divorce lawyers (with huge retainers and also billable hrs) would be the only victors if they contested relatively inconsequential problems in their divorce.

Atlanta Divorce Lawyer | Atlanta Family Law AttorneyStandard complete representation by a regional Atlanta divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all parts of your divorce litigation. It is highly likely to be a good professional service, yet it is way over-priced.

If you have a contested matter, a complicated matter, a high-value matter or a matter that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Atlanta divorce lawyer is NOT to be avoided. It is a requirement.

A contested matter signifies that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter includes legal complexities such as tax problems, current business problems, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of countless other complex legal situations. A high-value case means that your marital estate is large. There is no specific dollar limit. Certainly, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or higher, that is a high-value matter.

If you think that you have a contested,complex or high-value matter, you do. Employ an experienced and also high priced Atlanta divorce lawyer 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 Atlanta divorce lawyer. In fact, under those circumstances, complete legal representation by a Atlanta divorce lawyer ends up being a threat to your economic position. Stay clear of it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional Atlanta divorce lawyer, 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 telling you that you undeniably need to have their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That might come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll tell you next how to steer clear of perhaps 90+% of the potential risk of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a conventional Atlanta divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case could likewise perhaps get messed up if you DID hire a full representation Atlanta divorce attorney. That’s likewise not probable, but it could occur.

However, what will DEFINITELY occur if you hire a conventional complete representation Atlanta divorce attorney to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be dealt with extremely well, but you will overbuy unnecessary services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to occur anymore. Your parents had few other alternatives on their family law employing choices. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have numerous legitimate alternatives to make your Atlanta uncontested divorce lawyer employing selection based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Atlanta divorce lawyers. Read on.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the greatest threat you face in your employing selection in regards to damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a big market. And it is very unsafe to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills offer slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, charges lower than MOST lawyers, no legal advice, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance coverage, no understanding of Fulton County divorce procedures, no local understanding about Fulton County rules of court, local Fulton County documents, local practices or the policies of individual local judges in the Atlanta local area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a totally unregulated Wild-West market widespread with all sort of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, but what you get for that $300 charge is incredibly little– just prepared Georgia divorce forms. Any other services provided are all up-sold on the basis that when they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore money already spent? You are at their mercy and you are entirely vulnerable. And they know it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a good analysis of merely some of the more common scams and up-sells to be experienced in the online divorce market.

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center staff members and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will carry out any kind of analysis on your case to secure you and any minor children from future legal or financial damage. Customer support will be terrible due to the fact that it does not have to be anything else. You will never ever be able to meet with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none of them lie in Atlanta and even in Georgia

If you work with an online divorce mill believing you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household wind up spending for their mistakes for many 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 latest risk to stay away from in your Atlanta divorce lawyer employing choice.

However, the potential damage here is not big– nowhere near the damage done routinely 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 Atlanta divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to pay too much to some extent, depending upon just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as severely as if you had employed a conventional complete representation Atlanta family law attorney directly.

Obviously, you do not wish to hire a conventional complete representation Atlanta divorce attorney you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the important aspect here is that you do not wish to hire a conventional complete representation Atlanta divorce attorney to handle your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

Atlanta Divorce Lawyer | Atlanta Family Law AttorneyThe risk with employing a Atlanta divorce attorney that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re employing an average Atlanta divorce attorney– a drone who just stands in line with all other Atlanta divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the Atlanta lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to influence you that s/he is the standout resolution to your case. You do not wish to have that lawyer.

You want to get a Atlanta divorce lawyer who is imaginative, bold, one-of-a-kind, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Atlanta divorce lawyer to take care of your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even look after his/her own law practice interests strongly and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Atlanta lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

Mass-lawyer finder platforms like Avvo are totally free to sign up with, which is why every divorce lawyer in Fulton County will have registered. So you ought to not disqualify a Atlanta divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you ought to not think that such a Atlanta divorce lawyer is extremely shrewd or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are totally free for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer needs to then begin to pay constantly increasing charges on a bid-basis, always battling versus other local Fulton County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer does not pay extra, s/he’ll be on page 3 or 5 of the mass-lawyer site in even a medium-sized town. If that lawyer does not keep bidding up his/her charges, she’ll not get sufficient clients to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top extremely few lawyers in each town taking almost all clients– based on just how much marketing charges they can pay– not based on how good they are or on how they have configured their offerings to suit 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 skill of his/her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Atlanta pays more to the mass-lawyer finder company and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a highlighted position on the platform’s site and will get more sales, but his/her expenses of acquiring cases will continuously increase while his/her charges are relatively fixed by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Atlanta divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will always need a growing number of lower profit cases just to keep up with business expenses. You do not want that business-foolishness in someone you will rely on with your legal and economic future.

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

How to Find the Best Atlanta Divorce Lawyer – Atlanta Divorce Lawyer | Atlanta Family Law Attorney

So above are 4 things to stay clear of: do it yourself divorce, old-fashioned full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and uninspiring me-too drone lawyers who are truly bad at the business of law practice.

So what do you actually seek in a Atlanta divorce attorney?

Atlanta Divorce Lawyer | Atlanta Family Law AttorneyBefore I tell you, I wish to set the stage by giving you 2 exceptional data that I did not believe when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to maximize them in your Atlanta divorce lawyer employing 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 Atlanta 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 Atlanta divorce attorney:

  1. Licensed local Atlanta divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
  2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this suggests that you only purchase 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 examine your docs before they are filed, recognize problem concerns in your case and recommend the best alternatives based upon legal advice and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can determine they do not understand or do not want you to understand, just hang up. They do not yet get it. Carry on. Do not inform them.
  3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and enterall of the details in your case.  This not only conserves time and money, but it literally empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all informationin your case. Also, there’s no 50-page paper copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to get through 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 Atlanta 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 Atlanta lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Atlanta. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Atlanta. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Atlanta 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 Atlanta:

Sandy Springs, Athens, Macon, Columbus, Chattanooga, Birmingham, Augusta, Huntsville, Montgomery, Knoxville, Murfreesboro, Nashville, Savannah, Charlotte, Tallahassee, Clarksville, North Charleston, Charleston, Jacksonville, Winston-Salem, High Point, Lexington, Mobile, Greensboro, Gainesville, Louisville, Fayetteville, Memphis, Evansville, Durham

 

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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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