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

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to find the very best divorce lawyer in Augusta, Georgia There are lots of divorce attorneys in Augusta that would do a just as fine effort for you. It would undoubtedly be impossible to decide which one is the “very best.”

The correct concern for you, the Augusta divorce consumer, is the way to choose one of those Augusta top divorce lawyers at the ideal levels of assistance and also price for the realities of your specific circumstances – while staying clear of every one of the common, and also often dangerous, challenges of the Augusta divorce lawyer hiring decision.

If you know what those challenges are (I will certainly tell you in this blog post) and also if you have the right attitude, namely that you want to make your Augusta divorce lawyer fit your situation and also not allow the attorney to require your situation to fit his or her inflexible practice profile, then you raise greatly your opportunities of nailing the Augusta divorce lawyer hiring decision. Getting you through that selection effectively is the goal of this blog post.

To begin with, let’s list the 4 things to keep away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is conceivable, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire cost-free family law documents from Georgia’s judicial council or family court websites. Those cost-free divorce documents will be blank, obviously. You can at that point attempt to complete and also record the documents at your regional Richmond County divorce court by yourself without specialist aid. This is possible – however highly improbable, very difficult, complicated, irritating and also very lengthy.

DIY divorce would be practically unachievable, and also not wise even to attempt, in any  complicated or disputed family law process. It would be highly improbable to be effective if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any assets or financial debts to be itemized in case or have custody, visitation or assistance arrangements in your case. It would definitely be ill-advised in a case involving domestic physical violence. DIY would likewise be difficult if you work or if you position any kind of value on your own time. Family law documents and also procedures are developed by lawyers to confuse you to ensure that you work with – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I don’t spend excessive time on the do it yourself threat. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that folks that begin the divorce process with the intent to attempt to obtain a totally free divorce are most likely to  attempt DIY divorce regardless of what. Somehow, possibly financial, there is absolutely nothing I have actually had the ability to uncover to convince 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 costly to fix and also conclude. Don’t play this game. The system is developed by lawyers to confuse you and also require you to hire a divorce lawyer. There are currently economical alternatives available– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the litigants will not be disputing any problems, including the divorce itself. The litigants don’t need to be pleased and also they don’t need to care for each other. They are either entirely or generally in agreement on all problems and also are wise enough to acknowledge that standard full-representation divorce lawyers (with substantial retainers and also billable hrs) would be the only winners if they disputed fairly inconsequential problems in their divorce.

Conventional full representation by a local Augusta divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all facets of your divorce case. It is highly likely to be a good professional service, yet it is expensive.

If you have a disputed case, a complicated case, a high-value case or a case that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a Augusta divorce lawyer is NOT to be refrained from. It is a necessity.

A contested case means that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complicated case includes legal intricacies such as tax problems, active business problems, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of numerous other complex legal scenarios. A high-value case means that your marital estate is large. There is no particular dollar limit. Absolutely, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or higher, that is a high-value case.

If you believe that you have a disputed,complex or high-value case, you do. Work with an experienced and also high priced Augusta divorce lawyer for full traditional representation. Seek a certified Family Law specialist. You will certainly not be sorry you did.

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

Obviously, if you call or email a traditional Augusta 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 telling you that you absolutely require their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That could occur– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll share with you next how to stay away from possibly 90+% of the potential threat of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Augusta divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case might likewise possibly get messed up if you DID hire a full representation Augusta divorce attorney. That’s likewise not likely, but it could occur.

However, what will DEFINITELY occur if you hire a traditional full representation Augusta divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case may be handled extremely well, but you will overbuy unnecessary services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no requirement for that to occur anymore. Your parents had few other alternatives on their family law hiring options. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have numerous valid alternatives to make your Augusta uncontested divorce lawyer hiring selection based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Augusta divorce lawyers. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the greatest danger you encounter in your hiring selection in terms of damage to your future legal and financial safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a big industry. And it is very dangerous to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills provide slick websites, wicked-cool divorce computer software, fees lower than MOST lawyers, no legal advice, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance coverage, no understanding of Richmond County divorce policies, no local understanding about Richmond County rules of court, local Richmond County documents, local practices or the policies of specific local judges in the Augusta local area and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a totally unregulated Wild-West industry rampant with all sort of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill fees average about $300, but what you get for that $300 fee is remarkably little– simply prepared Georgia divorce documents. Any other services delivered 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 unprotected. And they recognize it!

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

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly 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. No one will conduct any type of analysis on your case to safeguard you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Client assistance will be dreadful because it does not need to be anything else. You will never have the ability to meet anybody at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none are located in Augusta or perhaps in Georgia

If you work with an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up spending for their errors for years, that is NOT an inexpensive 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 mistake to keep away from in your Augusta divorce lawyer hiring decision.

However, the potential harm here is not huge– nowhere near the damage done consistently 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 Augusta 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 badly as if you had actually employed a traditional full representation Augusta family law attorney straight up.

Certainly, you don’t want to hire a traditional full representation Augusta divorce attorney you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the important element here is that you don’t want to hire a traditional full representation Augusta divorce attorney to manage your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The threat with hiring a Augusta divorce attorney that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re employing a second-rate Augusta divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Augusta divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Augusta lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the unequalled resolution to your case. You don’t want that lawyer.

You wish to have a Augusta divorce lawyer who is innovative, strong, unique, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Augusta divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even take care of his or her own business interests aggressively and decisively? You’re looking for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Augusta lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

Mass-lawyer finder platforms like Avvo are free of charge to join, which is why every divorce lawyer in Richmond County will have joined. So you should not disqualify a Augusta divorce lawyer just because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you should not believe that such a Augusta divorce lawyer is very wise or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of charge for the lawyer to sign up, the lawyer will need to then begin to pay constantly increasing fees on a bid-basis, constantly battling versus other local Richmond County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the leading page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer does not 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 does not keep bidding up his or her fees, she’ll not get adequate trade to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading very few lawyers in each town taking almost all clients– based on just how much advertising fees they can pay– not based on how excellent 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 money 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 Augusta pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a highlighted position on the platform’s site and will get more cases, but his or her costs of acquiring cases will continuously increase while his or her fees are fairly set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Augusta divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will constantly need a growing number of lower profit cases simply to keep up with sales costs. You don’t want that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and financial future.

And yes, that lawyer is going to use the exact same brain to take care of your case as s/he used to screw his or her own business into the ground.

How to Find the Best Augusta Divorce Lawyer – Augusta DIvorce Lawyer | Georgia Family Law Attorney

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

So what do you in fact look for in a Augusta divorce attorney?

Before I tell you, I want to set the stage by giving you 2 exceptional stats that I did not believe when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to make the most of them in your Augusta 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 Augusta 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 Augusta divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Augusta 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 generally do your own filing of docs at court and schedule the service of filed docs on your spouse/partner. The divorce lawyer will review your docs before they are filed, recognize problem concerns in your case and recommend the very best alternatives based upon legal advice and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can tell they don’t know or don’t want you to know, simply hang up. They don’t yet get it. Move on. Don’t inform them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables you to log into a client portal and inputall of the data in your case.  This not only conserves money and time, but it literally empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain 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 Augusta 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 Augusta lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Augusta. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Augusta. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Augusta has a 1-800-DIVORCE.

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