How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Macon Georgia?  - Macon Divorce Attorney

It’s a trick question. You do not need to find the absolute best divorce lawyer in Macon, Georgia There are many divorce attorneys in Macon who would certainly do an equally excellent job for you. It would undoubtedly be impracticable to decide on which one is the “absolute best.”

The correct question for you, the Macon divorce consumer, is exactly how to locate just one of those Macon best divorce lawyers at the correct standards of assistance and price for the aspects of your unique circumstances – while avoiding all of the usual, and sometimes unsafe, pitfalls of the Macon divorce attorney selection choice.

If you understand what those pitfalls are (I will certainly advise you in this article) and if you have the proper mindset, namely that you wish to make your Macon divorce attorney fit your instance and not allow the attorney to force your instance to fit his/her rigid practice profile, then you boost greatly your opportunities of nailing the Macon divorce attorney hiring choice. Getting you through that decision successfully is the purpose of this article.

To begin with, let’s itemize the 4 things to steer clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is conceivable, repeat POSSIBLE, to download totally free family law forms from Georgia’s judicial council or family court websites. Those totally free divorce forms will be uncompleted, obviously. You can then attempt to complete and submit the forms at your neighborhood Bibb County divorce court on your own without expert assistance. This is possible – however extremely unlikely, very difficult, confusing, frustrating and incredibly slow.

Do it yourself divorce would be practically out of the question, and not wise even to attempt, in any type of  elaborate or contended family law case. It would be extremely unlikely to be a success if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any type of assets or financial obligations to be specified in case or have custody, visitation or assistance arrangements in your proceedings. It would absolutely be ill-advised in a matter entailing domestic violence. Do it yourself would additionally be challenging if you have a job or if you position any sort of worth on your own time. Family law documents and processeses are developed by lawyers to confuse you so that you employ – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not spend excessive time on the DIY danger. 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 totally free divorce are most likely to  attempt DIY divorce whatever. For one reason or another, most likely economic, there is absolutely nothing I have actually been able to discover to encourage them not to.

DIY in Family Law is typically fake saving. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up matters are much more difficult and costly to remedy and complete. Don’t play this game. The system is developed by lawyers to confuse you and force you to employ a divorce attorney. There are now affordable choices readily available– see below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the litigants will not be contesting any type of concerns, including the divorce itself. The litigants do not need to be cheerful and they do not need to like each other. They are either totally or generally in agreement on all concerns and are wise enough to realize that conventional full-representation divorce lawyers (with big retainers and billable hrs) would be the only winners if they contended fairly unimportant concerns in their divorce.

Traditional full representation by a neighborhood Macon divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all parts of your divorce litigation. It is extremely likely to be an excellent service, but it is really expensive.

If you have a contested 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 Macon divorce attorney is NOT to be refrained from. It is a requirement.

A contested case means that you and your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complex case consists of legal intricacies such as tax concerns, current business concerns, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of many additional intricate legal scenarios. A high-value case means 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 case.

If you suspect that you have a contested,complicated or high-value case, you do. Work with an expert and high priced Macon divorce attorney for full conventional representation. Look for 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 conventional full representation by a Macon divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, full legal representation by a Macon divorce attorney ends up being a risk to your economic position. Steer clear of it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional Macon divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their full representation service. In fact, they will attempt to terrify the crap out of you by advising you that you without a doubt require their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That could well come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll advise you next how to prevent potentially 90+% of the prospective danger of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Macon divorce attorney on a complete representation basis.

Your case might likewise potentially get messed up if you DID employ a complete representation Macon divorce attorney. That’s likewise not probable, but it could possibly occur.

However, what will DEFINITELY occur if you employ a conventional full representation Macon divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case may be managed extremely well, but you will overbuy needless services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to occur anymore. Your mothers and fathers had few other choices on their family law hiring options. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have many legitimate choices to make your Macon uncontested divorce attorney hiring decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Macon divorce lawyers. Read on.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the biggest risk you are confronted by in your hiring decision in regards to damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is incredibly unsafe to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills provide slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software, costs lower than MOST lawyers, no legal advice, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance coverage, no understanding of Bibb County divorce procedures, no regional understanding about Bibb County guidelines of court, regional Bibb County documents, regional practices or the policies of individual regional judges in the Macon area and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a totally unregulated 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 cost is remarkably little– simply prepared Georgia divorce forms. Any other services supplied 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 spent? You are at their whim and you are totally unguarded. And they recognize it!

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

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be dealing with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center employees and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. No one will perform any type of analysis on your case to secure you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer assistance will be horrible due to the fact that it does not need to be anything else. You will never ever be able to consult with anyone at an online divorce mill as it is most likely that none of them are located in Macon or even in Georgia

If you employ an online divorce mill believing you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your family end up paying for their errors 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 pitfall to steer clear of in your Macon divorce lawyer hiring choice.

However, the prospective damage here is not massive– nowhere near the damage done regularly 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 employ a Macon 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, but not as terribly as if you had actually employed a conventional full representation Macon family law attorney straight up.

Certainly, you do not wish to employ a conventional full representation Macon divorce attorney you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the crucial element here is that you do not wish to employ a conventional full representation Macon divorce attorney to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The danger with hiring a Macon divorce attorney that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a run-of-the-mill Macon divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Macon divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your trade but does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Macon lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the unique solution to your case. You do not wish to have that lawyer.

You could do with a Macon divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, unique, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you employ a Macon divorce lawyer to take care of your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even look after his/her own law practice interests aggressively and decisively? You’re searching for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Macon lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

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

However, you ought to not think that such a Macon divorce lawyer is very effective or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free for the lawyer to join, the lawyer must then begin to pay constantly increasing costs on a bid-basis, constantly competing versus other regional Bibb County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s website. If that lawyer does not 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 does not keep bidding up his/her costs, she’ll not get sufficient trade to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top very few lawyers in each town taking almost all the business– based upon just how much marketing costs they can pay– not based upon how great 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 quantity of cash s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and distinctiveness of his/her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Macon pays more to the mass-lawyer finder company and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s website and will get more clients, but his/her costs of doing business will continuously rise while his/her costs are fairly fixed by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Macon divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will constantly need a growing number of 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 economic future.

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

How to Find the Best Macon Divorce Lawyer – Macon Divorce Attorney

So above are 4 factors to avoid: DIY divorce, traditional 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 search for in a Macon divorce attorney?

Before I advise you, I wish to set the stage by offering you two exceptional stats that I did not accept when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to take full advantage of them in your Macon divorce lawyer selection 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 Macon 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 Macon divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Macon divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this signifies that you only pay for the legal services your case 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 evaluate your docs before they are filed, determine problem concerns in your case and recommend the very best choices based upon legal advice and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can tell they do not know or do not desire you to know, simply hang up. They do not 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 personal data in your case.  This not only conserves money and time, but it actually empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain 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 Macon 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 Macon lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Macon. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Macon. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Macon 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 Macon:

Atlanta, Athens, Columbus, Sandy Springs, Augusta, Savannah, Montgomery, Tallahassee, Chattanooga, Birmingham, Jacksonville, North Charleston, Huntsville, Charleston, Knoxville, Charlotte, Gainesville, Murfreesboro, Nashville, Winston-Salem, High Point, Mobile, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Orlando, Clarksville, Clearwater, Wilmington, Cary, Tampa