How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Charleston South Carolina?  - Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Charleston

It’s a trick question. You do not want to locate the most effective divorce attorney in Charleston, South Carolina There are lots of divorce attorneys in Charleston who would likely do an every bit as very good effort for you. It would be impossible to figure which one is the “best.”

The legitimate issue for you, the Charleston divorce consumer, is just how to choose just one of those Charleston top divorce lawyers at the ideal levels of assistance as well as expense for the facts of your specific situation – while staying away from all of the typical, as well as occasionally hazardous, risks of the Charleston divorce lawyer hiring choice.

If you recognize what those risks are (I will certainly inform you in this post) as well as if you have the proper attitude, particularly that you wish to make your Charleston divorce lawyer fit your instance as well as not allow the attorney to compel your instance to fit his/her inflexible practice profile, after that you increase considerably your chances of nailing the Charleston divorce lawyer employing choice. Getting you through that decision successfully is the purpose of this post.

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

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download cost-free family law forms from South Carolina’s judicial council or family court web sites. Those cost-free divorce forms will be blank, obviously. You can then try to complete as well as file the forms at your regional Charleston County divorce court by yourself without professional assistance. This is possible – however extremely improbable, really challenging, complicated, frustrating as well as exceptionally slow.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be practically impossible, as well as not sensible even to try, in any type of  complicated or contended family law action. It would certainly be extremely improbable to be a success if you have minor children of the marriage or have any type of assets or financial debts to be specified in the case or have custody, visitation or assistance settlements in your matter. It would certainly be unwise in a matter entailing domestic violence. Do it yourself would certainly additionally be hard if you have a job or if you position any type of value on your own time. Family law documents as well as processeses are made by lawyers to perplex you so that you employ – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I do not invest way too much time on the do it yourself risk. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that people who begin the divorce process with the intent to try to get a cost-free divorce are going to  try Do-It-Yourself divorce whatever. Somehow, probably economic, there is nothing I‘ve had the ability to uncover to convince them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is always fake saving. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, as well as screwed-up matters are far more perplexing as well as costly to fix as well as conclude. Don’t play this game. The system is made by lawyers to perplex you as well as compel you to employ a divorce lawyer. There are currently economical alternatives offered– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is simply one in which the parties will not be challenging any type of concerns, including the divorce itself. The parties do not need to be cheerful as well as they do not need to care for each other. They are either entirely or generally in agreement on all concerns as well as are sensible enough to acknowledge that traditional full-representation divorce lawyers (with big retainers as well as billable hours) would certainly be the only victors if they contended relatively inconsequential concerns in their divorce.

Standard full representation by a local Charleston divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all parts of your divorce case. It is extremely likely to be an excellent service, however it is very expensive.

If you have a contested matter, a complex matter, a high-value matter or a matter that includes domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a Charleston divorce lawyer is NOT to be refrained from. It is a necessity.

A disputed matter indicates that you as well as your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the matter. A complicated matter includes legal complexities such as tax concerns, current business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous additional complex legal scenarios. A high-value case indicates that your marital estate is huge. There is no specific dollar limit. Definitely, 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 contested,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Hire an experienced as well as expensive Charleston 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 contested, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT need traditional full representation by a Charleston divorce lawyer. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a Charleston divorce lawyer becomes a threat to your economic position. Avoid it.

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

That could possibly come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll share with you next how to keep away from possibly 90+% of the prospective risk of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Charleston divorce attorney on a complete representation basis.

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

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY occur if you employ a conventional full representation Charleston divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be managed very well, but you will overbuy excessive services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to occur nowadays. Your mothers and fathers had few other alternatives on their family law employing decisions. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have many valid alternatives to make your Charleston uncontested divorce lawyer employing decision based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Charleston divorce lawyers. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the most significant threat you are confronted by in your employing decision in terms of damage to your future legal and economic security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a big market. And it is exceptionally hazardous to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills use slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, costs lower than MOST lawyers, no legal guidance, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance coverage, no knowledge of Charleston County divorce procedures, no local knowledge about Charleston County guidelines of court, local Charleston County documents, local practices or the policies of individual local judges in the Charleston region and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within an entirely unregulated Wild-West market rampant with all type of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, but what you get for that $300 cost is incredibly little– just prepared South Carolina divorce forms. Any other services delivered are all up-sold on the basis that as soon as they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore cash 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 great review of just some of the more common scams and up-sells to be experienced in the online divorce market.

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. Nobody will conduct any type of analysis on your case to safeguard you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer assistance will be terrible due to the fact that it doesn’t need to be anything else. You will never be able to meet anyone at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none are located in Charleston and even in South Carolina

If you employ an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your family end up spending for their errors for several years, that is NOT an inexpensive 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 mistake to steer clear of in your Charleston divorce lawyer employing choice.

Nevertheless, the prospective harm here is not massive– 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 Charleston divorce attorney 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 full representation Charleston family law attorney straight up.

Obviously, you do not want to employ a conventional full representation Charleston divorce attorney you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the important aspect here is that you do not want to employ a conventional full representation Charleston divorce attorney to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The risk with employing a Charleston divorce attorney that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with an average Charleston divorce attorney– a drone who just stands in line with all other Charleston divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the Charleston lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the unequalled resolution to your case. You do not want to have that lawyer.

You wish to have a Charleston divorce lawyer who is creative, vibrant, distinct, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you employ a Charleston divorce lawyer to care for your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even care for 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 Charleston 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 cost to sign up with, which is why every divorce lawyer in Charleston County will have signed up. So you should not disqualify a Charleston divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

Nevertheless, you should not expect that such a Charleston divorce lawyer is really good or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of cost for the lawyer to join, the lawyer will need to then begin to pay continuously increasing costs on a bid-basis, always contending versus other local Charleston County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the leading page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer doesn’t 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 doesn’t keep bidding up his/her costs, she’ll not get enough cases to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading really few lawyers in each town taking almost all cases– based on just how much advertising costs they can pay– not based on how good they are or on how they have configured their offerings to fit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your case is the quantity 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 Charleston 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 business, but his/her expenses of working will continuously rise while his/her costs are relatively set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

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

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

How to Find the Best Charleston Divorce Lawyer – Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Charleston

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

So what do you in fact seek in a Charleston divorce attorney?

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by giving you two remarkable statistics that I did not presume true when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to take full advantage of them in your Charleston 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 Charleston 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 Charleston divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Charleston divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this means that you just pay for 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 review your docs before they are filed, recognize problem concerns in your case and recommend the very best alternatives based upon legal guidance and local knowledge. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can see that they do not understand or do not want you to understand, just 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 time and money, 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 hard copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to complete 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 Charleston 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 Charleston lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Charleston. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Charleston. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Charleston 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 Charleston:

Savannah, Augusta, Wilmington, Fayetteville, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Macon, Athens, Cary, High Point, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem, Gainesville, Atlanta, Sandy Springs, Columbus, Tallahassee, Orlando, Knoxville, Palm Bay, Chattanooga, Chesapeake, Lakeland, Norfolk, Newport News, Hampton, Virginia Beach, Tampa