How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Clearwater Florida?  - Best Clearwater, Florida Divorce Attorney Pinellas County

It’s a trick question. You do not want to get the best divorce lawyer or attorney in Clearwater, Florida There are many divorce lawyers in Clearwater who would do a just as excellent effort for you. It would undoubtedly be impossible to figure out which one is the “absolute best.”

The correct question for you, the Clearwater divorce consumer, is exactly how to locate one of those Clearwater top-notch divorce attorneys at the right standards of assistance and also cost for the aspects of your unique case – while steering clear of all of the usual, and also often harmful, pitfalls of the Clearwater divorce attorney hiring decision.

If you recognize what those pitfalls are (I will certainly inform you in this short article) and also if you have the right mindset, specifically that you want to make your Clearwater divorce attorney fit your case and also not allow the lawyer to require your case to fit his or her rigid practice profile, after that you boost substantially your opportunities of nailing the Clearwater divorce attorney employing decision. Getting you through that decision effectively is the goal of this post.

To start with, let’s mention the 4 factors to avoid:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is feasible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download cost-free family law documents from Florida’s judicial council or family court internet sites. Those cost-free divorce documents are going to be uncompleted, obviously. You can then try to finish and also record the documents at your local Pinellas County divorce court on your own without expert aid. This is possible – but extremely improbable, really challenging, complicated, frustrating and also incredibly slow.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be essentially unattainable, and also not smart even to try, in any type of  complicated or disputed family law process. It would certainly be extremely improbable to be successful if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any type of assets or financial debts to be specified in case or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your matter. It would absolutely be risky in a matter including domestic physical violence. Do it yourself would certainly likewise be tough if you work or if you put any sort of value on your own time. Family law documents and also processeses are created by attorneys to perplex you so that you hire – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not invest too much time on the do it yourself danger. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals who start the divorce process with the intent to try to get a totally free divorce are going to  try DIY divorce no matter what. Somehow, possibly financial, there is absolutely nothing I‘ve had the ability to uncover to persuade them not to.

DIY in Family Law is always fake economy. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and also screwed-up matters are far more challenging and also expensive to fix and also complete. Don’t play this game. The system is created by attorneys to perplex you and also require you to hire a divorce attorney. There are now cost-efficient choices available– see below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is simply one in which the litigants will not be challenging any type of problems, including the divorce itself. The litigants do not need to be cheerful and also they do not need to care for each other. They are either entirely or mostly in agreement on all problems and also are smart enough to understand that standard full-representation divorce attorneys (with substantial retainers and also billable hrs) would certainly be the only winners if they disputed reasonably inconsequential problems in their divorce.

Traditional full representation by a local Clearwater divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all parts of your divorce litigation. It is extremely likely to be a very good service, however it is high priced.

If you have a disputed case, a complex case, a high-value case or a matter that involves domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a Clearwater divorce attorney is NOT to be avoided. It is a requirement.

A contested case indicates that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complex case consists of legal complexities such as tax problems, current business problems, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of numerous additional complex legal issues. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is very large. There is no specific dollar limit. Absolutely, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or greater, that is a high-value case.

If you suspect that you have a disputed,complex or high-value case, you do. Hire an experienced and also high priced Clearwater divorce attorney for full conventional representation. Try to find 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 conventional full representation by a Clearwater divorce attorney. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a Clearwater divorce attorney ends up being a danger to your financial position. Steer clear of it.

Obviously, if you call or email a traditional Clearwater divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their full representation service. In fact, they will try to terrify the crap out of you by telling you that you without a doubt need their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That could occur– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll inform you next how to stay clear of possibly 90+% of the possible danger of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Clearwater divorce lawyer on a complete representation basis.

Your case might likewise possibly get messed up if you DID hire a complete representation Clearwater divorce lawyer. That’s likewise not likely, but it could possibly happen.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY happen if you hire a traditional full representation Clearwater divorce lawyer to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case might be handled very well, but you will overbuy unneeded services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no requirement for that to happen anymore. Your parents had few other choices on their family law employing choices. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have numerous legitimate choices to make your Clearwater uncontested divorce attorney employing decision based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Clearwater divorce attorneys. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the greatest danger you deal with in your employing decision in terms of damage to your future legal and financial security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge industry. And it is incredibly harmful to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills offer slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software application, fees lower than MOST attorneys, no legal suggestions, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance coverage, no knowledge of Pinellas County divorce policies, no regional knowledge about Pinellas County guidelines of court, regional Pinellas County documents, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the Clearwater region and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a completely unregulated Wild-West industry rampant with all type of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill fees average about $300, but what you get for that $300 fee is incredibly little– simply prepared Florida divorce documents. Any other services supplied 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 whim and you are entirely unprotected. And they realize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a good summary of just a few of the more typical scams and up-sells to be found in the online divorce industry.

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be contending with low-level, inexperienced, disinterested, high turn-over personnel, 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 protect you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer support will be dreadful since it doesn’t need to be anything else. You will never have the ability to meet anyone at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none of them lie in Clearwater or even in Florida

If you hire an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your family end up spending for their mistakes for 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 Clearwater divorce lawyer employing decision.

Nevertheless, the possible harm here is not significant– nowhere near the damage done consistently by non-lawyer online divorce mills or indeed the damage most likely to be done by you to your own case with DIY divorce.

If you hire a Clearwater divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending upon how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as severely as if you had hired a traditional full representation Clearwater family law lawyer directly.

Certainly, you do not want to hire a traditional full representation Clearwater divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the essential element here is that you do not want to hire a traditional full representation Clearwater divorce lawyer to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The danger with employing a Clearwater divorce lawyer that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re employing a second-rate Clearwater divorce lawyer– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Clearwater divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Clearwater lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the one-of-a-kind solution to your case. You do not wish to have that lawyer.

You would like a Clearwater divorce lawyer who is imaginative, vibrant, distinct, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Clearwater divorce lawyer to safeguard your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even look after his or her own law practice interests strongly and decisively? You’re looking for a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Clearwater lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

Nevertheless, you must not believe that such a Clearwater divorce lawyer is really smart or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free for the lawyer to enroll in, the lawyer will need to then start to pay constantly increasing fees on a bid-basis, constantly competing against other regional Pinellas County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s website. If that lawyer doesn’t pay extra, 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 or her fees, she’ll not get sufficient cases to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top really few attorneys in each town taking almost all the business– based on how much marketing fees 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 business is the amount of money s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and skill of his or her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Clearwater 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 cases, but his or her costs of working will continuously increase while his or her fees are reasonably fixed by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Clearwater divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will constantly need more and more lower profit cases simply to keep up with sales costs. You do not desire that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and financial future.

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

How to Find the Best Clearwater Divorce Lawyer – Best Clearwater, Florida Divorce Attorney Pinellas County

So above are 4 factors to steer clear of: do it yourself divorce, old-fashioned full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and boring me-too drone attorneys who are really bad at law practice business.

So what do you in fact look for in a Clearwater divorce lawyer?

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

1. Licensed local Clearwater 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 needs. You will normally 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, identify problem concerns in your case and recommend the best choices based upon legal suggestions and regional knowledge. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can see that they do not understand or do not desire you to understand, simply 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 inputall of the personal data in your case.  This not only saves time and money, but it literally empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain your case. Also, there’s no 50-page paper copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to complete 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 Clearwater 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 Clearwater lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Clearwater. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Clearwater. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Clearwater 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 Clearwater:

Saint Petersburg, Tampa, Lakeland, Orlando, Cape Coral, Gainesville, Palm Bay, Port Saint Lucie, Jacksonville, West Palm Beach, Tallahassee, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, Miramar, Hollywood, Hialeah, Miami, Savannah, Columbus, Macon, Mobile, Montgomery, Charleston, North Charleston, Augusta, Atlanta, Athens, Sandy Springs