How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Grand Rapids Michigan?  - Grand Rapids DIvorce Lawyer | Michigan Family Law Attorney

It’s a trick question. You don’t need to get the absolute best divorce lawyer in Grand Rapids, Michigan There are lots of divorce attorneys in Grand Rapids who will do an every bit as fine effort for you. It would undoubtedly be inconceivable to figure which one is the “best.”

The legitimate issue for you, the Grand Rapids divorce buyer, is the way to choose one of those Grand Rapids best divorce lawyers at the correct levels of representation and also price for the aspects of your unique case – while staying away from all of the common, and also occasionally harmful, pitfalls of the Grand Rapids divorce lawyer selection choice.

If you recognize what those pitfalls are (I will certainly inform you in this short article) and also if you have the correct perspective, namely that you wish to make your Grand Rapids divorce lawyer fit your case and also not enable the attorney to require your case to fit his/her stiff practice profile, then you increase significantly your chances of nailing the Grand Rapids divorce lawyer employing choice. Getting you through that decision effectively is the objective of this article.

First, let’s specify the 4 factors to steer clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is conceivable, repeat POSSIBLE, to download free family law documents from Michigan’s judicial council or family court internet sites. Those free divorce documents will be uncompleted, of course. You can at that point attempt to complete and also record the documents at your local Kent County divorce court on your own without professional assistance. This is feasible – however very unlikely, really challenging, complicated, frustrating and also incredibly lengthy.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be practically out of the question, and also not smart even to try, in any type of  elaborate or contended family law case. It would certainly be very unlikely to be a success if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any type of property or debts to be itemized in the event or have custody, visitation or assistance agreements in your case. It would certainly be risky in a case entailing domestic violence. Do it yourself would certainly also be difficult if you have a job or if you position any kind of value on your own time. Family law documents and also processeses are made by lawyers to confuse you to make sure that you work with – an attorney.

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 people who start the divorce process with the intent to attempt to obtain a totally free divorce are going to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce regardless of what. For one reason or another, most likely financial, there is nothing I have actually had the ability to discover to convince them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is typically fake economy. You WILL probably screw it up, and also screwed-up cases are far more challenging and also very expensive to remedy and also complete. Don’t play this game. The system is made by lawyers to confuse you and also require you to employ a divorce lawyer. There are currently affordable options available– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the participants will not be disputing any type of concerns, including the divorce itself. The participants don’t need to be cheerful and also they don’t need to care for each other. They are either entirely or mainly in agreement on all concerns and also are smart enough to recognize that conventional full-representation divorce lawyers (with substantial retainers and also billable hours) would certainly be the only victors if they contended fairly unimportant concerns in their divorce.

Conventional complete representation by a neighborhood Grand Rapids divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all aspects of your divorce matter. It is very likely to be a good service, however it is really expensive.

If you have a contested matter, a complex matter, a high-value matter or a case that includes domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Grand Rapids divorce lawyer is NOT to be refrained from. It is a requirement.

A disputed matter signifies that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complicated matter consists of legal intricacies such as tax concerns, active business concerns, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of numerous additional intricate legal issues. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is huge. There is no specific dollar limit. Absolutely, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or higher, that is a high-value matter.

If you suspect that you have a contested,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Employ an experienced and also expensive Grand Rapids divorce lawyer for complete 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 complete representation by a Grand Rapids divorce lawyer. In fact, under those circumstances, complete legal representation by a Grand Rapids divorce lawyer becomes a danger to your financial position. Stay clear of it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional Grand Rapids divorce lawyer, they will not tell you that you do not need their complete representation service. In fact, they will attempt to frighten the crap out of you by sharing with you that you undeniably 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 tell you next how to avoid perhaps 90+% of the possible risk of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Grand Rapids divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case might likewise perhaps get messed up if you DID employ a full representation Grand Rapids divorce attorney. That’s likewise not probable, however it could possibly take place.

However, what will DEFINITELY take place if you employ a conventional complete representation Grand Rapids divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be managed very well, however you will overbuy excessive services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no need for that to take place any longer. Your mothers and fathers had few other options on their family law employing choices. Your grandparents had no other options. You have numerous legitimate options to make your Grand Rapids uncontested divorce lawyer employing decision based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Grand Rapids divorce lawyers. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

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

Online divorce mills provide slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software application, 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 Kent County divorce procedures, no regional knowledge about Kent County rules of court, regional Kent County documents, regional practices or the policies of individual regional judges in the Grand Rapids region and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a totally uncontrolled Wild-West market widespread with all sort of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, however what you get for that $300 fee is extremely little– simply prepared Michigan 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 – ignore cash already invested? You are at their mercy and you are entirely unprotected. And they know it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a very good analysis of merely some of the more typical frauds and up-sells to be experienced in the online divorce market.

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, inexperienced, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center employees and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will carry out any type of analysis on your case to safeguard you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Client assistance will be awful due to the fact that it doesn’t need to be anything else. You will never be able to consult with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none lie in Grand Rapids or perhaps in Michigan

If you work with an online divorce mill believing you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household wind up paying for their mistakes 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 latest risk to steer clear of in your Grand Rapids divorce lawyer employing choice.

However, the possible damage here is not huge– nowhere near the damage done routinely 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 work with a Grand Rapids 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, however not as severely as if you had actually hired a conventional complete representation Grand Rapids family law attorney directly.

Clearly, you don’t want to employ a conventional complete representation Grand Rapids divorce attorney you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, however the essential element here is that you don’t want to employ a conventional complete representation Grand Rapids divorce attorney to manage your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The risk with employing a Grand Rapids divorce attorney that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a mediocre Grand Rapids divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Grand Rapids divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business however does nothing to set apart himself or herself from the Grand Rapids lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the best solution to your case. You don’t want that lawyer.

You could do with a Grand Rapids divorce lawyer who is creative, strong, distinct, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Grand Rapids divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even care for his/her own business interests strongly and decisively? You’re searching for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Grand Rapids 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 sign up with, which is why every divorce lawyer in Kent County will have joined. So you need to not disqualify a Grand Rapids divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you need to not consider that such a Grand Rapids divorce lawyer is really effective or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of charge for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer must then start to pay continually increasing costs on a bid-basis, always contending against other regional Kent County divorce lawyers, 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/her costs, she’ll not get sufficient business to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top really few lawyers in each town taking almost all clients– based on just how much advertising costs they can pay– not based on how great they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to match your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your business 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 Grand Rapids 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 sales, however his/her costs of doing business will constantly increase while his/her costs are fairly fixed by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Grand Rapids divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always need more and more lower revenue cases simply to keep up with sales costs. You don’t desire that business-foolishness in somebody you will trust with your legal and financial future.

And yes, that lawyer is going to use the 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 Grand Rapids Divorce Lawyer – Grand Rapids DIvorce Lawyer | Michigan Family Law Attorney

So above are 4 problems to keep away from: DIY divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and boring me-too drone lawyers who are truly bad at the business of law practice.

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

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by providing you 2 exceptional statistics that I did not believe when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to take full advantage of them in your Grand Rapids 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 Grand Rapids 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 Grand Rapids divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Grand Rapids divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this signifies that you just buy the legal services your case requires. 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 review your docs before they are filed, determine problem issues in your case and suggest the best options based upon legal guidance 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 desire you to know, simply hang up. They don’t yet get it. Move on. Don’t educate them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables you to log into a client portal and enterall of the information in your case.  This not only conserves money and time, but it literally empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain your case. Likewise, 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 Grand Rapids 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 Grand Rapids lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Grand Rapids. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Grand Rapids. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Grand Rapids 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 Grand Rapids:

Lansing, South Bend, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, Farmington Hills, Chicago, Fort Wayne, Sterling Heights, Warren, Detroit, Toledo, Elgin, Naperville, Joliet, Green Bay, Rockford, Madison, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, Davenport, Cincinnati, Erie, Springfield, Cedar Rapids, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Rochester