How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Concord California?  - Concord Divorce Lawyer | Divorce Attorney Concord

It’s a trick question. You don’t need to identify the absolute best divorce lawyer in Concord, California There are lots of divorce lawyers in Concord that would do a just as great effort for you. It would be impossible to figure which one is the “very best.”

The actual concern for you, the Concord divorce buyer, is exactly how to identify one of those Concord top-notch divorce lawyers at the ideal levels of assistance and also cost for the aspects of your unique situation – while steering clear of every one of the typical, and also occasionally harmful, pitfalls of the Concord divorce lawyer selection decision.

If you know what those pitfalls are (I will inform you in this short article) and also if you have the appropriate attitude, particularly that you want to make your Concord divorce lawyer fit your situation and also not allow the attorney to compel your situation to fit his/her rigid practice profile, then you boost greatly your opportunities of nailing the Concord divorce lawyer employing decision. Getting you through that choice successfully is the goal of this article.

To begin with, let’s specify the 4 traits to stay away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download cost-free family law forms from California’s judicial council or family court websites. Those cost-free divorce forms are going to be uncompleted, of course. You can then try to complete and also record the forms at your local Contra Costa County divorce court by yourself without professional aid. This is feasible – but extremely unlikely, really difficult, complex, frustrating and also incredibly slow.

Do it yourself divorce would be essentially out of the question, and also not smart even to try, in any kind of  complicated or contested family law matter. It would be extremely unlikely to be a success if you have minor children of the marriage or have any kind of property or financial debts to be itemized in the case or have custody, visitation or assistance agreements in your matter. It would definitely be reckless in a case involving domestic violence. Do it yourself would also be hard if you work or if you put any type of worth on your own time. Family law forms and also procedures are created by lawyers to puzzle you so that you work with – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I don’t spend way too much time on the do it yourself threat. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that people that begin the divorce process with the intent to try to get a free divorce are most likely to  try DIY divorce whatever. For one reason or another, possibly economic, there is nothing I‘ve been able to find to convince them not to.

DIY in Family Law is consistently false saving. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and also screwed-up matters are a lot more problematic and also expensive to fix and also finalize. Do not play this game. The system is created by lawyers to puzzle you and also compel you to employ a divorce lawyer. There are currently cost-efficient choices available– see below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is simply one in which the participants will not be disputing any kind of problems, including the divorce itself. The participants don’t have to be cheerful and also they don’t have to like each other. They are either totally or generally in agreement on all problems and also are smart enough to recognize that traditional full-representation divorce lawyers (with huge retainers and also billable hours) would be the only winners if they contested reasonably inconsequential problems in their divorce.

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

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

A disputed matter indicates that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter has legal intricacies such as tax problems, active business problems, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous additional complex legal situations. 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 think that you have a disputed,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Work with an expert and also expensive Concord divorce lawyer for full traditional representation. Look for a certified Family Law specialist. You will not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a disputed, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT require traditional full representation by a Concord divorce lawyer. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a Concord divorce lawyer becomes a danger to your economic position. Stay clear of it.

Naturally, if you call or email a conventional Concord divorce lawyer, they will not tell you that you do not require their full representation service. In fact, they will try to terrify the crap out of you by advising you that you definitely require their service and that your case will get screwed up without it.

That could possibly come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll inform you next how to avoid possibly 90+% of the possible threat of getting your case screwed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Concord divorce attorney on a complete representation basis.

Your case might also possibly get screwed up if you DID employ a complete representation Concord divorce attorney. That’s also not probable, however it could happen.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY happen if you employ a conventional full representation Concord divorce attorney to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case may be handled extremely well, however you will overbuy unnecessary services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no need for that to happen nowadays. Your parents had few other choices on their family law employing decisions. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have numerous valid choices to make your Concord uncontested divorce lawyer employing choice based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Concord divorce lawyers. Read on.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the biggest risk you face in your employing choice in terms of damage to your future legal and economic security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is incredibly harmful to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills offer slick websites, wicked-cool divorce computer software, costs lower than MOST lawyers, no legal suggestions, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance coverage, no knowledge of Contra Costa County divorce procedures, no regional knowledge about Contra Costa County guidelines of court, regional Contra Costa County forms, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the Concord local area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a completely unregulated Wild-West industry rampant with all sort of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, however what you get for that $300 charge is extremely little– simply prepared California divorce forms. Any other services provided are all up-sold on the basis that when they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – walk away from money already spent? You are at their mercy and you are totally vulnerable. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a great overview of just some of the more typical scams and up-sells to be experienced 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 employees 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. Customer assistance will be terrible due to the fact that it doesn’t have to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to meet with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none of them are located in Concord or even in California

If you work with an online divorce mill believing you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up paying 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 directory sites like Avvo, FindLaw, LegalZoom, Justia, Google Screened, Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) and now even Yelp. This is the most recent risk to stay away from in your Concord divorce lawyer employing decision.

Nevertheless, the possible harm here is not huge– nowhere near the damage done consistently 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 work with a Concord divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to pay too much to some extent, depending upon just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, however not as badly as if you had actually employed a conventional full representation Concord family law attorney directly.

Clearly, you don’t want to employ a conventional full representation Concord divorce attorney you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, however the crucial element here is that you don’t want to employ a conventional full representation Concord divorce attorney to handle your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The threat with employing a Concord divorce attorney that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a below average Concord divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Concord divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business however does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Concord lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the one-of-a-kind solution to your case. You don’t want to have that lawyer.

You could do with a Concord divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, distinct, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Concord divorce lawyer to care for your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even take care of his/her own law practice interests strongly and decisively? You’re searching for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Concord 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 join, which is why every divorce lawyer in Contra Costa County will have joined. So you must not disqualify a Concord divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

Nevertheless, you must not conclude that such a Concord divorce lawyer is really clever or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of cost for the lawyer to enroll in, the lawyer will need to then begin to pay constantly increasing costs on a bid-basis, constantly contending against other regional Contra Costa County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the leading 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 costs, she’ll not get sufficient business to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading really few lawyers in each town taking almost all the business– 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 match your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your case is the amount of money 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 Concord pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s website and will get more business, however his/her costs of working will continuously rise while his/her costs are reasonably fixed by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Concord divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will constantly require increasingly more lower revenue cases simply to keep up with sales costs. 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 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 Concord Divorce Lawyer – Concord Divorce Lawyer | Divorce Attorney Concord

So above are 4 concerns to avoid: do it yourself divorce, conventional full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and boring me-too drone lawyers who are actually bad at business.

So what do you actually try to find in a Concord divorce attorney?

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by giving you 2 impressive data that I did not accept when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to maximize them in your Concord 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 Concord 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 Concord divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Concord divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this means that you only buy the legal services your case actually requires. You will normally do your own filing of docs at court and arrange for the service of filed docs on your spouse/partner. The divorce lawyer will review your docs before they are filed, determine problem concerns in your case and suggest the best choices based upon legal suggestions and regional knowledge. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can see that they don’t know or don’t want you to know, simply hang up. They don’t yet get it. Carry on. Do not educate them.
3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and inputall of the information in your case.  This not only conserves money and time, but it in fact 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 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 Concord 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 Concord lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Concord. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Concord. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Concord has a 1-800-DIVORCE.

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