How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Birmingham Alabama?  - Birmingham Divorce Lawyer | Birmingham Family Law Attorney

It’s a trick question. You do not want to locate the very best divorce lawyer or attorney in Birmingham, Alabama There are numerous divorce attorneys in Birmingham who would do a just as very good effort for you. It would be impracticable to decide which one is the “best.”

The real question for you, the Birmingham divorce client, is precisely how to find one of those Birmingham top-notch divorce attorneys at the precise levels of assistance as well as cost for the realities of your individual case – while keeping away from every one of the usual, as well as occasionally unsafe, challenges of the Birmingham divorce lawyer selection decision.

If you recognize what those challenges are (I will certainly inform you in this short article) as well as if you have the correct attitude, particularly that you want to make your Birmingham divorce lawyer fit your case as well as not enable the lawyer to require your case to fit his/her stiff practice profile, then you boost greatly your chances of nailing the Birmingham divorce lawyer employing decision. Getting you through that decision effectively is the objective of this blog post.

Initially, let’s specify the 4 points to avoid:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download free family law documents from Alabama’s judicial council or family court websites. Those free divorce documents are going to be blank, obviously. You can then try to finish as well as file the documents at your regional Jefferson County divorce court on your own without specialist assistance. This is feasible – but very unlikely, extremely challenging, confusing, frustrating as well as very slow.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be essentially unattainable, as well as not wise even to try, in any  complicated or disputed family law action. It would certainly be very unlikely to be effective if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any assets or financial debts to be listed in the case or have custody, visitation or assistance arrangements in your proceedings. It would definitely be risky in a matter entailing domestic violence. Do it yourself would certainly additionally be difficult if you have a job or if you put any type of value on your own time. Family law forms as well as processeses are created by attorneys to puzzle you so that you employ – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not invest way too much time on the DIY danger. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals who start the divorce procedure with the intent to try to obtain a free divorce are most likely to  try Do-It-Yourself divorce regardless of what. Somehow, probably financial, there is nothing I‘ve had the ability to discover to encourage them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is typically fake saving. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, as well as screwed-up proceedings are a lot more problematic as well as expensive to correct as well as conclude. Do not play this game. The system is created by attorneys to puzzle you as well as require you to employ a divorce lawyer. There are currently cost-efficient choices readily available– see below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the litigants will not be contesting any concerns, including the divorce itself. The litigants do not need to be pleased as well as they do not need to care for each other. They are either completely or generally in agreement on all concerns as well as are wise enough to acknowledge that conventional full-representation divorce attorneys (with huge retainers as well as billable hours) would certainly be the only winners if they disputed reasonably insignificant concerns in their divorce.

Conventional full representation by a neighborhood Birmingham divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all aspects of your divorce matter. It is very likely to be a good service, but it is really expensive.

If you have a disputed matter, a complicated matter, a high-value matter or a matter that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a Birmingham divorce lawyer is NOT to be evaded. It is a prerequisite.

A disputed matter indicates that you as well as your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the matter. A complicated matter contains legal intricacies such as tax concerns, current business concerns, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of countless additional intricate 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 believe that you have a disputed,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Employ an experienced as well as expensive Birmingham divorce lawyer for full conventional representation. Search for 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 require conventional full representation by a Birmingham divorce lawyer. In fact, under those conditions, full legal representation by a Birmingham divorce lawyer becomes a risk to your financial position. Stay clear of it.

Obviously, if you call or email a conventional Birmingham divorce lawyer, they will not tell you that you do not require their full representation service. In fact, they will try to frighten the crap out of you by advising you that you completely require their service which your case will get messed up without it.

That could well occur– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll inform you next how to steer clear of possibly 90+% of the potential danger of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Birmingham divorce lawyer on a full representation basis.

Your case could also possibly get messed up if you DID employ a full representation Birmingham divorce lawyer. That’s also not probable, but it could possibly occur.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY occur if you employ a conventional full representation Birmingham divorce lawyer to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case might be managed extremely well, but you will overbuy excessive services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no need for that to occur any longer. Your parents had few other choices on their family law employing options. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have lots of valid choices to make your Birmingham uncontested divorce lawyer employing decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Birmingham divorce attorneys. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the greatest threat you are confronted by in your employing decision in terms of damage to your future legal and financial security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is very unsafe to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills provide slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, charges lower than MOST attorneys, no legal recommendations, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance coverage, no knowledge of Jefferson County divorce procedures, no local knowledge about Jefferson County rules of court, local Jefferson County forms, local practices or the policies of individual local judges in the Birmingham area and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a totally unregulated Wild-West industry 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 cost is remarkably little– simply prepared Alabama divorce documents. Any other services supplied are all up-sold on the basis that as soon as 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 recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a good overview of merely 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 always be dealing with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center workers and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will conduct any kind of analysis on your case to safeguard you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Client assistance will be horrible because it doesn’t need to be anything else. You will never ever be able to meet anyone at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none of them are located in Birmingham or perhaps in Alabama

If you employ an online divorce mill believing you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your family end up paying for their errors for many years, that is NOT a low-cost 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 pitfall to avoid in your Birmingham divorce lawyer employing decision.

Nevertheless, the potential harm here is not big– nowhere near the damage done consistently 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 employ a Birmingham divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending upon just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as severely as if you had hired a conventional full representation Birmingham family law lawyer directly.

Clearly, you do not wish to employ a conventional full representation Birmingham divorce lawyer you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the essential factor here is that you do not wish to employ a conventional full representation Birmingham divorce lawyer to manage your simple uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The danger with employing a Birmingham divorce lawyer that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a below average Birmingham divorce lawyer– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Birmingham divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the Birmingham lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the standout solution to your case. You do not wish to have that lawyer.

You wish to have a Birmingham divorce lawyer who is innovative, vibrant, unique, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you employ a Birmingham divorce lawyer to oversee your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even take care of his/her own law practice interests aggressively and decisively? You’re looking for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Birmingham lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

Nevertheless, you need to not think that such a Birmingham divorce lawyer is extremely good or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer will need to then start to pay constantly increasing charges on a bid-basis, always contending versus other local Jefferson County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s website. If that lawyer doesn’t 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 doesn’t keep bidding up his/her charges, she’ll not get adequate clients to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top extremely few attorneys in each town taking almost all clients– based on just how much marketing charges they can pay– not based on how great 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 cash 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 Birmingham pays more to the mass-lawyer finder company and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a highlighted position on the platform’s website and will get more sales, but his/her expenses of doing business will constantly rise while his/her charges are reasonably set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Birmingham divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always require a growing number of lower revenue cases simply to stay on top of business expenses. You do not want that business-foolishness in someone you will rely on with your legal and financial future.

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

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

So above are 4 situations to abstain from: DIY divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in simple uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and lackluster me-too drone attorneys who are truly bad at law practice business.

So what do you actually look for in a Birmingham divorce lawyer?

Before I inform you, I wish to set the stage by giving you two amazing stats that I did not presume true when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to maximize them in your Birmingham 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 Birmingham 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 Birmingham divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Birmingham divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this signifies that you just purchase the legal services your case actually requires. You will typically 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 submitted to court, recognize problem issues in your case and recommend the best choices based upon legal recommendations and local knowledge. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can see that they do not know or do not want you to know, simply hang up. They do not yet get it. Carry on. Do not 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 saves money and time, but it literally empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain your case. Also, there’s no 50-page hard 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 Birmingham 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 Birmingham lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Birmingham. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Birmingham. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Birmingham has a 1-800-DIVORCE.

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