How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Fairfield California?  - Best Affordable Divorce Attorney in Fairfield

It’s a trick question. You do not want to find the best divorce lawyer or attorney in Fairfield, California There are several divorce lawyers in Fairfield that would do a just as excellent job for you. It would definitely be impossible to establish which one is the “absolute best.”

The correct question for you, the Fairfield divorce buyer, is just how to identify one of those Fairfield best divorce attorneys at the ideal levels of representation and cost for the realities of your specific circumstances – while staying clear of every one of the typical, and occasionally harmful, mistakes of the Fairfield divorce attorney selection choice.

If you understand what those mistakes are (I will tell you in this blog post) and if you have the right mindset, particularly that you wish to make your Fairfield divorce attorney fit your situation and not enable the attorney to compel your situation to fit his or her inflexible practice profile, then you increase greatly your opportunities of nailing the Fairfield divorce attorney hiring choice. Getting you through that choice efficiently is the goal of this post.

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

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is feasible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download free family law documents from California’s judicial council or family court websites. Those free divorce documents are going to be uncompleted, of course. You can at that point try to finish and record the documents at your local Solano County divorce court by yourself without professional help. This is possible – nevertheless extremely improbable, extremely difficult, confusing, aggravating and exceptionally slow.

DIY divorce would be essentially unfeasible, and not wise even to attempt, in any type of  elaborate or contested family law matter. It would be extremely improbable to be successful if you have minor children of the marriage or have any type of property or debts to be listed in the case or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your case. It would absolutely be unwise in a matter entailing domestic violence. DIY would additionally be hard if you work or if you position any type of value on your own time. Family law documents and processeses are made by attorneys to perplex you so that you employ – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not spend way too much time on the do it yourself risk. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals that start the divorce procedure with the intent to try to get a cost-free divorce are going to  try Do-It-Yourself divorce regardless of what. Somehow, most likely financial, there is nothing I‘ve been able to find to convince them not to.

DIY in Family Law is consistently false affordability. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up matters are far more perplexing and expensive to remedy and finalize. Do not play this game. The system is made by attorneys to perplex you and compel you to hire a divorce attorney. There are currently economical alternatives available– see below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

2. Avoid Traditional Fairfield 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 type of concerns, including the divorce itself. The participants do not have to be happy and they do not have to like each other. They are either totally or mostly in agreement on all concerns and are wise enough to recognize that conventional full-representation divorce attorneys (with big retainers and billable hours) would be the only victors if they contested reasonably insignificant concerns in their divorce.

Traditional complete representation by a local Fairfield divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all parts of your divorce case. It is extremely likely to be a very good service, yet it is really expensive.

If you have a contested case, a complex case, a high-value case or a matter that includes domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Fairfield divorce attorney is NOT to be avoided. It is a necessity.

A contested case means that you and your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the case. A complicated case contains legal intricacies such as tax concerns, current business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of many other 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 case.

If you believe that you have a contested,complex or high-value case, you do. Employ an experienced and high priced Fairfield divorce attorney for complete conventional representation. Search for a certified Family Law specialist. You will not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a contested, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT need conventional complete representation by a Fairfield divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Fairfield divorce attorney ends up being a threat to your financial position. Avoid it.

Obviously, if you call or email a traditional Fairfield divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their complete representation service. In fact, they will try to scare the crap out of you by advising you that you absolutely require their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That might transpire– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll advise you next how to steer clear of perhaps 90+% of the prospective risk of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Fairfield divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case could likewise perhaps get messed up if you DID hire a full representation Fairfield divorce attorney. That’s likewise not likely, but it could take place.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a traditional complete representation Fairfield divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be handled extremely well, but you will overbuy unneeded services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no need for that to take place nowadays. Your mothers and fathers had few other alternatives on their family law hiring options. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have numerous legitimate alternatives to make your Fairfield uncontested divorce attorney hiring choice based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Fairfield divorce attorneys. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the most significant threat you deal with in your hiring choice in terms of damage to your future legal and financial security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge industry. And it is exceptionally harmful to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills use slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software application, costs lower than MOST attorneys, no legal recommendations, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance coverage, no understanding of Solano County divorce procedures, no local understanding about Solano County guidelines of court, local Solano County documents, local practices or the policies of individual local judges in the Fairfield local area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a totally uncontrolled Wild-West industry widespread with all type of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, but what you get for that $300 charge is remarkably little– simply prepared California divorce documents. 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 invested? You are at their mercy and you are totally vulnerable. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a good analysis 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 always be dealing with low-level, untrained, disinterested, high turn-over personnel, call center workers and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will carry out any kind of analysis on your case to protect you and any minor children from future legal or financial damage. Client support will be awful because it doesn’t have to be anything else. You will never have the ability to meet anybody at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none of them lie in Fairfield and even in California

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 many 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 stay away from in your Fairfield divorce lawyer hiring choice.

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

If you employ a Fairfield divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending on how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as severely as if you had employed a traditional complete representation Fairfield family law attorney straight up.

Obviously, you do not wish to hire a traditional complete representation Fairfield divorce attorney you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the crucial aspect here is that you do not wish to hire a traditional complete representation Fairfield divorce attorney to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The risk with hiring a Fairfield divorce attorney that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re employing a humdrum Fairfield divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Fairfield divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the Fairfield lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the exceptional resolution to your case. You do not want to have that lawyer.

You could do with a Fairfield divorce lawyer who is innovative, strong, one-of-a-kind, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you employ a Fairfield divorce lawyer to care for your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even care for his or her own law practice interests aggressively and decisively? You’re looking for a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Fairfield lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

Nevertheless, you must not conclude that such a Fairfield divorce lawyer is extremely intelligent or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of cost for the lawyer to enroll in, the lawyer will need to then start to pay continuously increasing costs on a bid-basis, always competing against other local Solano County divorce attorneys, 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 or her costs, she’ll not get adequate cases to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading extremely few attorneys in each town taking almost all cases– based upon how much advertising costs they can pay– not based upon how good they are or on how they have configured their offerings to suit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your case is the quantity 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 Fairfield 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 or her costs of acquiring cases will continuously rise while his or her costs are reasonably set by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Fairfield divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always need more and more lower revenue cases simply to stay on top of business costs. You do not desire that business-foolishness in someone you will rely on with your legal and financial future.

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

How to Find the Best Fairfield Divorce Lawyer – Best Affordable Divorce Attorney in Fairfield

So above are 4 factors to keep away from: do it yourself divorce, conventional full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and lackluster me-too drone attorneys who are actually bad at law practice business.

So what do you in fact search for in a Fairfield divorce attorney?

Before I tell you, I wish to set the stage by offering you two exceptional 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 Fairfield 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 Fairfield 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 Fairfield divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Fairfield divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this means that you only pay for the legal services your case actually requires. You will typically 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, recognize problem concerns in your case and suggest the best alternatives based upon legal recommendations and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can determine they do not know or do not desire you to know, simply hang up. They do not yet get it. Move on. Do not educate them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables 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 actually 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 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 Fairfield 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 Fairfield lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Fairfield. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Fairfield. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Fairfield 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 Fairfield:

Vallejo, Concord, Antioch, Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, Sacramento, Elk Grove, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Hayward, Daly City, Stockton, San Mateo, Roseville, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose, Modesto, Salinas, Reno, Clovis, Fresno, Visalia, Santa Maria, Bakersfield, Ventura, Oxnard, Lancaster, Simi Valley