How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Lowell Massachusetts?  - Divorce & Family Law in Lowell

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to locate the best divorce attorney in Lowell, Massachusetts There are a lot of divorce attorneys in Lowell who will do an every bit as great undertaking for you. It would be impossible to decide which one is the “absolute best.”

The correct question for you, the Lowell divorce buyer, is the way to locate just one of those Lowell top divorce lawyers at the proper standards of representation and cost for the facts of your particular circumstances – while avoiding every one of the common, and often hazardous, pitfalls of the Lowell divorce lawyer selection choice.

If you understand what those pitfalls are (I will tell you in this post) and if you have the proper perspective, specifically that you intend to make your Lowell divorce lawyer fit your situation and not permit the lawyer to compel your situation to fit his/her inflexible practice profile, then you increase greatly your opportunities of nailing the Lowell divorce lawyer employing choice. Getting you through that choice effectively is the intention of this blog post.

To start with, let’s itemize the 4 things to stay clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is feasible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download free family law forms from Massachusetts’s judicial council or family court web sites. Those free divorce forms will be blank, of course. You can then attempt to finish and submit the forms at your regional Middlesex County divorce court by yourself without specialist help. This is possible – nevertheless highly unlikely, very difficult, complex, irritating and incredibly time-consuming.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be effectively unfeasible, and not wise even to try, in any  complicated or contended family law proceedings. It would certainly be highly unlikely to be effective if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any assets or financial debts to be detailed in the event or have custody, visitation or assistance arrangements in your proceedings. It would absolutely be ill-advised in a case including domestic physical violence. Do it yourself would certainly also be challenging if you have a job or if you put any kind of worth on your own time. Family law forms and procedures are designed by lawyers to confuse you to make sure that you employ – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I don’t invest 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 who begin the divorce procedure with the intent to attempt to get a free divorce are most likely to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce no matter what. Somehow, probably economic, there is nothing I have actually been able to uncover to convince them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is typically false saving. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and screwed-up cases are a lot more problematic and really expensive to correct and conclude. Do not play this game. The system is designed by lawyers to confuse you and compel you to employ a divorce lawyer. There are currently affordable choices available– see below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

2. Avoid Traditional Lowell 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 issues, including the divorce itself. The litigants don’t need to be cheerful and they don’t need to like each other. They are either entirely or mostly in agreement on all issues and are wise enough to recognize that standard full-representation divorce lawyers (with big retainers and billable hrs) would certainly be the only winners if they contended relatively insignificant issues in their divorce.

Standard complete representation by a neighborhood Lowell divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all parts of your divorce matter. It is highly likely to be a very good professional service, yet it is high priced.

If you have a contested case, a complex case, a high-value case or a case that involves domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Lowell divorce lawyer is NOT to be evaded. It is a requirement.

A contested case means that you and your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complicated case includes legal complexities such as tax issues, current business issues, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of countless other intricate legal scenarios. A high-value case means that your marital estate is huge. There is no specific dollar limit. Certainly, 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 contested,complicated or high-value case, you do. Hire an experienced and expensive Lowell divorce lawyer for complete conventional representation. Try to find 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 require conventional complete representation by a Lowell divorce lawyer. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Lowell divorce lawyer ends up being a risk to your economic position. Avoid it.

Naturally, if you call or email a traditional Lowell divorce lawyer, they will not tell you that you do not require their complete representation service. In fact, they will attempt to scare the crap out of you by telling you that you absolutely are in need of their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That could transpire– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll inform you next how to avoid potentially 90+% of the possible threat of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T employ a traditional Lowell divorce lawyer on a complete representation basis.

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

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY happen if you employ a traditional complete representation Lowell divorce lawyer to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be dealt with extremely well, but you will overbuy unnecessary services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no need for that to happen any longer. Your parents had few other choices on their family law employing options. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have many legitimate choices to make your Lowell uncontested divorce lawyer employing choice based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Lowell divorce lawyers. Read on.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the biggest risk you deal with in your employing choice in regards to damage to your future legal and economic security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a big industry. And it is incredibly hazardous to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills provide slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, charges lower than MOST lawyers, no legal suggestions, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance, no knowledge of Middlesex County divorce procedures, no regional knowledge about Middlesex County guidelines of court, regional Middlesex County forms, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the Lowell region and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a totally unregulated Wild-West industry widespread with all kinds of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, but what you get for that $300 cost is extremely little– just prepared Massachusetts divorce forms. Any other services delivered are all up-sold on the basis that once they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – leave cash already invested? You are at their mercy and you are entirely vulnerable. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a good summary of just some of the more common scams and up-sells to be discovered in the online divorce industry.

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll always be dealing with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center staff members and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will conduct any kind of analysis on your case to protect you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer assistance will be terrible due to the fact that it does not need to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to meet anybody at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none of them are located in Lowell or perhaps in Massachusetts

If you employ an online divorce mill believing you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up spending for their errors for many 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 mistake to stay clear of in your Lowell divorce lawyer employing choice.

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

If you employ a Lowell divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to pay too much to some extent, depending on how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as badly as if you had hired a traditional complete representation Lowell family law lawyer directly.

Certainly, you don’t wish to employ a traditional complete representation Lowell divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the essential factor here is that you don’t wish to employ a traditional complete representation Lowell divorce lawyer to handle your simple uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The threat with employing a Lowell divorce lawyer that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a run-of-the-mill Lowell divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other Lowell divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your trade but does nothing to set apart himself or herself from the Lowell lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to influence you that s/he is the unequalled resolution to your case. You don’t wish to have that lawyer.

You wish to have a Lowell divorce lawyer who is imaginative, strong, one-of-a-kind, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you employ a Lowell 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 looking for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Lowell lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining 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 Middlesex County will have joined. So you should not disqualify a Lowell divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

Nevertheless, you should not believe that such a Lowell divorce lawyer is very intelligent or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of charge for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer will need to then begin to pay continually increasing charges on a bid-basis, always contending versus other regional Middlesex County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer does not 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 does not keep bidding up his/her charges, she’ll not get enough trade to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top very few lawyers in each town taking almost all clients– based upon how much marketing charges they can pay– not based upon 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 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 Lowell pays more to the mass-lawyer finder company and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s site and will get more sales, but his/her costs of getting cases will constantly increase while his/her charges are relatively set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Lowell divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always require a growing number of lower revenue cases just to keep up with business 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 utilize the very same brain to care for your case as s/he utilized to screw his/her own business into the ground.

How to Find the Best Lowell Divorce Lawyer – Divorce & Family Law in Lowell

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

So what do you actually seek in a Lowell divorce lawyer?

Before I tell you, I wish to set the stage by providing you two amazing stats that I did not presume true when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to maximize them in your Lowell 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 Lowell 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 Lowell divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Lowell divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this suggests that you only pay for the legal services your case needs. You will usually 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 submitted to court, determine problem concerns in your case and recommend the very best choices based upon legal suggestions and regional knowledge. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can determine they don’t understand or don’t want you to understand, just hang up. They don’t yet get it. Move on. Do not inform 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 informationin your case. Likewise, there’s no 50-page hard 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 Lowell 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 Lowell lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Lowell. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Lowell. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Lowell 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 Lowell:

Cambridge, Boston, Manchester, Worcester, Providence, Hartford, Waterbury, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, Yonkers, Paterson, New York City, Jersey City, Newark, Elizabeth, Edison, Syracuse, Allentown, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Buffalo, Washington, D. C., Alexandria, Erie, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Pittsburgh, Newport News, Norfolk