How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Chicago Illinois?  - Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Chicago

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to find the best divorce lawyer or attorney in Chicago, Illinois There are a large number of divorce attorneys in Chicago who would likely do a just as excellent job for you. It would be inconceivable to figure out which one is the “best.”

The actual concern for you, the Chicago divorce client, is the way to discover one of those Chicago top divorce attorneys at the right levels of representation as well as price for the aspects of your unique case – while keeping away from all of the usual, as well as in some cases unsafe, pitfalls of the Chicago divorce attorney hiring decision.

If you recognize what those pitfalls are (I will certainly inform you in this article) as well as if you have the appropriate perspective, specifically that you want to make your Chicago divorce attorney fit your case as well as not permit the lawyer to compel your case to fit his/her stiff practice profile, after that you raise greatly your possibilities of nailing the Chicago divorce attorney hiring decision. Getting you through that choice successfully is the goal of this post.

To start with, let’s note the 4 factors to stay away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is feasible, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire cost-free family law documents from Illinois’s judicial council or family court websites. Those cost-free divorce documents are going to be uncompleted, of course. You can then attempt to complete as well as file the documents at your local Cook County divorce court on your own without expert assistance. This is feasible – but extremely improbable, very difficult, confusing, aggravating as well as extremely slow.

DIY divorce would certainly be essentially unachievable, as well as not sensible even to try, in any kind of  complex or contested family law case. It would certainly be extremely improbable to be effective if you have minor children of the marriage or have any kind of assets or financial obligations to be listed in case or have custody, visitation or assistance arrangements in your matter. It would certainly be risky in a case involving domestic violence. DIY would certainly likewise be difficult if you have a job or if you place any kind of worth on your own time. Family law forms as well as procedures are created by attorneys to puzzle you to make sure that you hire – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I don’t invest way too much time on the DIY risk. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals who start the divorce process with the intent to attempt to get a totally free divorce are going to  attempt DIY divorce regardless of what. For some reason, possibly economic, there is nothing I have actually had the ability to find to persuade them not to.

DIY in Family Law is always fake economy. You WILL probably screw it up, as well as screwed-up proceedings are much more problematic as well as very expensive to correct as well as complete. Do not play this game. The system is created by attorneys to puzzle you as well as compel you to hire a divorce attorney. There are currently cost-effective choices offered– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the participants will not be contesting any kind of issues, including the divorce itself. The participants don’t need to be cheerful as well as they don’t need to care for each other. They are either totally or generally in agreement on all issues as well as are sensible enough to realize that traditional full-representation divorce attorneys (with substantial retainers as well as billable hours) would certainly be the only winners if they contested relatively inconsequential issues in their divorce.

Traditional complete representation by a neighborhood Chicago divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all aspects of your divorce litigation. It is extremely likely to be an excellent professional service, however it is way over-priced.

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, complete representation by a Chicago divorce attorney is NOT to be evaded. It is a requirement.

A contested case denotes that you as well as your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complicated case has legal intricacies such as tax issues, current business issues, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous other complex legal issues. A high-value case denotes 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 disputed,complex or high-value case, you do. Work with an experienced as well as high priced Chicago 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 disputed, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT require traditional complete representation by a Chicago divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Chicago divorce attorney becomes a risk to your economic position. Steer clear of it.

Of course, if you call or email a traditional Chicago divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not require their complete representation service. In fact, they will attempt to terrify the crap out of you by telling you that you completely need their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That could happen– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll tell you next how to keep away from perhaps 90+% of the potential risk of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Chicago divorce lawyer on a full representation basis.

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

However, what will DEFINITELY occur if you hire a traditional complete representation Chicago divorce lawyer to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be handled very well, but you will overbuy excessive services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no need for that to occur nowadays. Your mothers and fathers had few other choices on their family law hiring options. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have numerous valid choices to make your Chicago uncontested divorce attorney hiring choice based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Chicago divorce attorneys. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the biggest threat you face in your hiring choice in regards to damage to your future legal and economic security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is extremely unsafe to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills use slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, fees lower than MOST attorneys, no legal guidance, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance coverage, no knowledge of Cook County divorce procedures, no regional knowledge about Cook County guidelines of court, regional Cook County forms, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the Chicago area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within an entirely unregulated Wild-West industry rampant with all sort of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill fees average about $300, but what you get for that $300 charge is incredibly little– just prepared Illinois divorce documents. Any other services provided 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 invested? You are at their mercy and you are totally unprotected. And they realize it!

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

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be dealing with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center employees and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. No one will perform any kind of analysis on your case to protect you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Client assistance will be terrible due to the fact that it does not need to be anything else. You will never ever be able to consult with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is most likely that none of them lie in Chicago and even in Illinois

If you hire an online divorce mill believing you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household wind up spending for their errors for several 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 newest mistake to stay away from in your Chicago divorce lawyer hiring decision.

However, the potential damage here is not big– nowhere near the damage done routinely by non-lawyer online divorce mills or undoubtedly the damage likely to be done by you to your own case with DIY divorce.

If you hire a Chicago divorce lawyer 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 severely as if you had employed a traditional complete representation Chicago family law lawyer directly.

Clearly, you don’t want to hire a traditional complete representation Chicago divorce lawyer you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the crucial factor here is that you don’t want to hire a traditional complete representation Chicago divorce lawyer to manage your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The risk with hiring a Chicago divorce lawyer that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a humdrum Chicago divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other Chicago divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your trade but does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the Chicago lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to influence you that s/he is the one-of-a-kind resolution to your case. You don’t want to have that lawyer.

You want to get a Chicago divorce lawyer who is creative, vibrant, distinct, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Chicago divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even care for his/her own business interests aggressively and decisively? You’re searching for a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Chicago 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 Cook County will have joined. So you need to not disqualify a Chicago divorce lawyer just because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you need to not consider that such a Chicago divorce lawyer is very shrewd or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of charge for the lawyer to sign up, the lawyer needs to then start to pay continually increasing fees on a bid-basis, constantly competing versus other regional Cook County divorce attorneys, 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/her fees, she’ll not get enough cases to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading very few attorneys in each town taking almost all clients– based upon just how much advertising fees 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/her service offerings.

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

The Chicago divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will constantly require a growing number of lower profit cases just to keep up with business expenses. You don’t want that business-foolishness in somebody you will trust with your legal and economic future.

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

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

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

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

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by offering you 2 exceptional stats that I did not accept when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to take full advantage of them in your Chicago 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 Chicago 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 Chicago divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Chicago 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 needs. 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 examine your docs before they are filed, recognize problem concerns in your case and suggest the very best choices based upon legal guidance and regional knowledge. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can see that they don’t understand or don’t want you to understand, just hang up. They don’t yet get it. Carry on. Do not inform them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables you to log into a client portal and enterall of the data in your case.  This not only conserves money and time, but it actually 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 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 Chicago 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 Chicago lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Chicago. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Chicago. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Chicago 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 Chicago:

Naperville, Joliet, Elgin, South Bend, Rockford, Milwaukee, Madison, Grand Rapids, Fort Wayne, Davenport, Indianapolis, Lansing, Springfield, Green Bay, Ann Arbor, Cedar Rapids, Toledo, Farmington Hills, Dayton, Detroit, Warren, Sterling Heights, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Louisville, Evansville, Rochester, Des Moines, Cleveland, Lexington