How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Madison Wisconsin?  - Best Madison, Wisconsin Divorce Attorney Dane County

It’s a trick question. You do not need to locate the most effective divorce attorney in Madison, Wisconsin There are a large number of divorce lawyers in Madison who would do a just as fine job for you. It would be inconceivable to identify which one is the “best.”

The correct question for you, the Madison divorce buyer, is the way to discover just one of those Madison top divorce attorneys at the exact standards of representation and cost for the facts of your individual scenario – while steering clear of every one of the typical, and occasionally dangerous, mistakes of the Madison divorce lawyer hiring decision.

If you know what those mistakes are (I will certainly inform you in this post) and if you have the proper mindset, namely that you intend to make your Madison divorce lawyer fit your situation and not enable the lawyer to require your situation to fit his/her inflexible practice profile, after that you boost considerably your chances of nailing the Madison divorce lawyer hiring decision. Getting you through that decision efficiently is the objective of this article.

Initially, let’s itemize the 4 factors to avoid:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is conceivable, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire free family law forms from Wisconsin’s judicial council or family court sites. Those free divorce forms are going to be blank, of course. You can at that point attempt to complete and file the forms at your neighborhood Dane County divorce court on your own without expert help. This is feasible – but very improbable, very difficult, complex, aggravating and exceptionally lengthy.

DIY divorce would certainly be essentially unachievable, and not wise even to try, in any  elaborate or contested family law proceedings. It would certainly be very improbable to be a success if you have minor children of the marriage or have any assets or financial obligations to be itemized in the event or have custody, visitation or assistance arrangements in your case. It would certainly be risky in a case entailing domestic physical violence. DIY would certainly likewise be challenging if you work or if you put any type of value on your own time. Family law documents and processeses are created by attorneys to puzzle you to ensure that you hire – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I do not invest excessive time on the do it yourself danger. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals who begin the divorce procedure with the intent to attempt to get a cost-free divorce are most likely to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce whatever. Somehow, possibly economic, there is absolutely nothing I‘ve been able to find to convince them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is always fake affordability. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and screwed-up matters are much more problematic and costly to deal with and conclude. Don’t play this game. The system is created by attorneys to puzzle you and require you to hire a divorce lawyer. There are currently cost-efficient choices readily available– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

 

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

An uncontested divorce is simply one in which the parties will not be contesting any concerns, including the divorce itself. The parties do not need to be happy and they do not need to like each other. They are either totally or mostly in agreement on all concerns and are wise enough to acknowledge that traditional full-representation divorce attorneys (with huge retainers and billable hours) would certainly be the only winners if they contested reasonably unimportant concerns in their divorce.

Best Madison, Wisconsin Divorce Attorney Dane CountyConventional full representation by a regional Madison divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all parts of your divorce litigation. It is very likely to be an excellent professional service, however it is way over-priced.

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

A disputed matter denotes that you and your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter contains legal intricacies such as tax concerns, active business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous other intricate legal situations. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is very large. There is no particular dollar limit. Absolutely, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or greater, that is a high-value matter.

If you suspect that you have a contested,complex or high-value matter, you do. Employ an expert and expensive Madison divorce lawyer 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 require conventional full representation by a Madison divorce lawyer. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a Madison divorce lawyer ends up being a danger to your economic position. Avoid it.

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

That could well come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll share with you next how to prevent perhaps 90+% of the possible danger of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Madison divorce lawyer on a complete representation basis.

Your case could likewise perhaps get messed up if you DID hire a complete representation Madison divorce lawyer. That’s likewise not probable, however it could take place.

However, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a traditional full representation Madison divorce lawyer to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be managed effectively, however you will overbuy excessive services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to take place anymore. Your mothers and fathers had few other choices on their family law hiring choices. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have many legitimate choices to make your Madison uncontested divorce lawyer hiring decision based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Madison divorce attorneys. Read on.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the biggest danger you deal with in your hiring decision in regards to damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge market. And it is exceptionally dangerous to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills use slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software, costs lower than MOST attorneys, no legal recommendations, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance coverage, no knowledge of Dane County divorce policies, no local knowledge about Dane County rules of court, local Dane County documents, local practices or the policies of specific local judges in the Madison region and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a completely unregulated Wild-West market widespread with all type of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, however what you get for that $300 charge is remarkably little– simply prepared Wisconsin 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 – leave 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 very good assessment of merely some of the more typical scams and up-sells to be discovered in the online divorce market.

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll always be dealing with low-level, inexperienced, indifferent, high turn-over personnel, call center workers and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. No one 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 dreadful since it does not need to be anything else. You will never ever be able to meet anyone at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none lie in Madison and even in Wisconsin

If you hire an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your family end up spending for their mistakes for many years, that is NOT a cheap 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 newest risk to avoid in your Madison divorce lawyer hiring decision.

However, the possible damage here is not big– nowhere near the damage done regularly 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 hire a Madison divorce lawyer 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 severely as if you had hired a traditional full representation Madison family law lawyer directly.

Clearly, you do not want to hire a traditional full representation Madison divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, however the crucial element here is that you do not want to hire a traditional full representation Madison divorce lawyer to handle your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

Best Madison, Wisconsin Divorce Attorney Dane CountyThe danger with hiring a Madison divorce lawyer that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a below average Madison divorce lawyer– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Madison divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business however does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Madison lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the best solution to your case. You do not want that lawyer.

You want a Madison divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, unique, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Madison divorce lawyer to oversee your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even care for his/her own law practice interests strongly and decisively? You’re searching for a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Madison lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

However, you ought to not conclude that such a Madison divorce lawyer is very smart or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are completely free for the lawyer to join, the lawyer needs to then begin to pay continuously increasing costs on a bid-basis, always battling versus other local Dane County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the leading 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 adequate cases to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading very few attorneys in each town taking almost all cases– 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 suit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your business 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 Madison 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 getting business will continuously increase while his/her costs are reasonably set by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Madison divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always require more and more lower profit cases simply to stay on top of sales costs. You do not want that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and economic future.

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

How to Find the Best Madison Divorce Lawyer – Best Madison, Wisconsin Divorce Attorney Dane County

So above are 4 problems to stay clear of: do it yourself divorce, conventional full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated 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 Madison divorce lawyer?

Best Madison, Wisconsin Divorce Attorney Dane CountyBefore I inform you, I want to set the stage by providing you two amazing statistics that I did not accept when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to make the most of them in your Madison 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 Madison 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 Madison divorce attorney:

  1. Licensed local Madison divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
  2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this indicates that you just buy the legal services your case requires. 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 evaluate your docs before they are filed, determine problem issues in your case and recommend the very best choices based upon legal recommendations and local knowledge. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can tell they do not understand or do not want you to understand, simply hang up. They do not yet get it. Carry on. Don’t educate them.
  3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and enterall of the 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 informationin your case. Also, 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 Madison 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 Madison lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Madison. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Madison. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Madison 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 Madison:

Rockford, Milwaukee, Elgin, Naperville, Green Bay, Davenport, Chicago, Joliet, Cedar Rapids, Rochester, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Saint Paul, Springfield, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Lansing, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Ann Arbor, Farmington Hills, Saint Louis, Toledo, Columbia, Sterling Heights, Warren, Detroit, Dayton, Omaha, Evansville

 

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If you’ve made the difficult personal decision to terminate your marriage or to seek other critical family law relief, you should proceed at your pace and at your comfort level.

So continue to think and please keep us in mind. We know you’ll remember 1-800-DIVORCE.

Remember also that you want a bold competitive divorce lawyer who stands out from the me-too lawyer-crowd. You don’t want a lawyer to look after your legal and economic future if s/he doesn’t even compete and look after his or her own future.

…including emergency orders, disclosure laws, negotiation of settlements and trial work but also in mediation or collaborative law – should your case be suitable for those methods either now or later on.

Non-lawyer online divorce providers only provide the most basic divorce papers. For you to obtain any additional services through a non-lawyer, they would have to make a cold referral to a lawyer in your area.

Why not start off with the best divorce lawyer near me, such as your local 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer, who will already know the facts and issues of your case if additional services become necessary?

Use 1-800-DIVORCE to find the best divorce lawyer near me.

Your local 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer is required to maintain a professional and confidential relationship with you.  S/he is required to handle your case with the highest ethical standards.  S/he is required to take continuing legal education and professional responsibility courses.

Non-lawyer online divorce providers are NOT staffed by lawyers.  They are not licensed or bonded.  They get on-the-job training only! You will have no effective recourse should you be treated dishonestly or incompetently by an online provider.

Search for “online divorce problems” and you will have plenty to read.  Many online providers are truly terrible.  A few are downright fraudulent. If you get caught with a bad one, you will need a lawyer, and much more money, just to get your case sorted.

Don’t take that risk when a local solution exists at a similar cost.  Use 1-800-DIVORCE to find the best divorce lawyer near me.

A non-lawyer online divorce provider will likely be located far away and will be clueless about your state’s laws and your local Rules of Court. Online divorce providers claim to know how to handle divorces in all 3000+ counties in the US – an impossibility.

You can make an appointment to see your local 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer if the need arises. 

If you hire a non-lawyer online divorce provider, it will be the blind leading the blind. And when things go wrong, which they will, you will never get face time with that online provider and you will rarely be able to reach them on the phone or by email. Find a local divorce lawyer. Find the best divorce lawyer near me.

If you hire an unregulated online divorce outfit for $300-$1000 and end up paying for their mistakes forever, that’s NOT a cheap divorce.

Divorce is tough enough already! Don’t go it alone. Find the best  divorce lawyer near me through 1-800-DIVORCE.

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