How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Mesa Arizona?  - Divorce & Family Law in Mesa

It’s a trick question. You don’t need to find the very best divorce lawyer in Mesa, Arizona There are lots of divorce attorneys in Mesa who would certainly do an equally good undertaking for you. It would undoubtedly be inconceivable to identify which one is the “best.”

The correct issue for you, the Mesa divorce consumer, is just how to choose one of those Mesa top divorce lawyers at the right levels of representation and also cost for the facts of your certain situation – while steering clear of every one of the typical, and also in some cases hazardous, pitfalls of the Mesa divorce attorney selection decision.

If you know what those pitfalls are (I will inform you in this article) and also if you have the appropriate mindset, specifically that you wish to make your Mesa divorce attorney fit your instance and also not permit the attorney to require your instance to fit his or her stiff practice profile, then you increase substantially your chances of nailing the Mesa divorce attorney hiring decision. Getting you through that decision successfully is the objective of this blog post.

First, let’s note the 4 factors to avoid:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download free family law forms from Arizona’s judicial council or family court web sites. Those free divorce forms will be blank, of course. You can then try to complete and also file the forms at your local Maricopa County divorce court by yourself without expert aid. This is feasible – nevertheless highly unlikely, really challenging, complex, discouraging and also extremely time-consuming.

DIY divorce would be practically unattainable, and also not wise even to attempt, in any type of  elaborate or contended family law proceedings. It would be highly unlikely to be effective if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any type of property or debts to be specified in the event or have custody, visitation or assistance arrangements in your matter. It would absolutely be reckless in a matter entailing domestic violence. DIY would additionally be hard if you work or if you put any type of value on your own time. Family law forms and also procedures are made by lawyers to confuse you to ensure that you work with – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I don’t spend 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 individuals who start the divorce procedure with the intent to try to obtain a cost-free divorce are most likely to  try DIY divorce whatever. For one reason or another, probably financial, there is nothing I‘ve had the ability to find to persuade them not to.

DIY in Family Law is always false saving. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and also screwed-up matters are much more challenging and also very expensive to remedy and also complete. Do not play this game. The system is made by lawyers to confuse you and also require you to employ a divorce attorney. There are currently cost-effective choices readily available– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the parties will not be challenging any type of problems, including the divorce itself. The parties don’t have to be pleased and also they don’t have to like each other. They are either completely or generally in agreement on all problems and also are wise enough to realize that traditional full-representation divorce lawyers (with substantial retainers and also billable hrs) would be the only victors if they contended fairly insignificant problems in their divorce.

Traditional full representation by a neighborhood Mesa divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce matter. It is highly likely to be a good professional service, but it is high priced.

If you have a disputed matter, a complicated matter, a high-value matter or a matter that includes domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a Mesa divorce attorney is NOT to be avoided. It is a necessity.

A disputed matter denotes that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter includes legal intricacies such as tax problems, active business problems, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of many additional intricate legal situations. A high-value case denotes 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 matter.

If you suspect that you have a disputed,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Hire an expert and also high priced Mesa divorce attorney for full traditional representation. Try to find a certified Family Law specialist. You will not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a disputed, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT require traditional full representation by a Mesa divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, full legal representation by a Mesa divorce attorney becomes a risk to your financial position. Avoid it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional Mesa divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not require their full representation service. In fact, they will try to scare the crap out of you by sharing with you that you completely need their service and that your case will get screwed up without it.

That could possibly come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll share with you next how to stay clear of possibly 90+% of the prospective threat of getting your case screwed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Mesa divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case could also possibly get screwed up if you DID employ a full representation Mesa divorce attorney. That’s also not likely, however it could happen.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY happen if you employ a conventional full representation Mesa divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be handled very well, however you will overbuy unnecessary services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to happen any longer. Your parents had few other choices on their family law hiring decisions. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have many valid choices to make your Mesa uncontested divorce attorney hiring decision based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Mesa divorce lawyers. Read on.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the greatest threat you encounter in your hiring decision in terms of damage to your future legal and financial safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a big market. And it is extremely hazardous to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills use slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, charges lower than MOST lawyers, no legal guidance, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of Maricopa County divorce policies, no regional understanding about Maricopa County rules of court, regional Maricopa County forms, regional practices or the policies of individual regional judges in the Mesa area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within an entirely unregulated Wild-West market rampant with all type of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, however what you get for that $300 fee is incredibly little– simply prepared Arizona divorce forms. Any other services delivered are all up-sold on the basis that as soon as they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – leave cash already invested? You are at their whim and you are completely unprotected. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a good overview of just some of the more common frauds and up-sells to be found in the online divorce market.

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, untrained, disinterested, high turn-over staff, call center employees 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 dreadful since it does not have to be anything else. You will never have the ability to meet anyone at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none are located in Mesa and even in Arizona

If you work with an online divorce mill thinking you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your family wind up paying for their mistakes for years, that is NOT an inexpensive 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 mistake to avoid in your Mesa divorce lawyer hiring decision.

Nevertheless, the prospective damage here is not massive– 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 work with a Mesa divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to pay too much to some extent, depending upon how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, however not as severely as if you had hired a conventional full representation Mesa family law attorney directly.

Undoubtedly, you don’t want to employ a conventional full representation Mesa divorce attorney you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, however the important factor here is that you don’t want to employ a conventional full representation Mesa divorce attorney to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The threat with hiring a Mesa divorce attorney that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a run-of-the-mill Mesa divorce attorney– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Mesa divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business however does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Mesa lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the standout resolution to your case. You don’t wish to have that lawyer.

You want to have a Mesa divorce lawyer who is imaginative, vibrant, unique, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Mesa divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even look after his or her own law practice interests strongly and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Mesa lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

Nevertheless, you need to not think that such a Mesa divorce lawyer is really wise or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are completely free for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer must then start to pay continuously increasing charges on a bid-basis, always battling against other regional Maricopa 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 or her charges, she’ll not get enough business to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top really few lawyers in each town taking almost all the business– based upon how much marketing charges they can pay– not based upon how excellent they are or on how they have configured their offerings to fit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your trade is the quantity of cash 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 Mesa pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a highlighted position on the platform’s website and will get more clients, however his or her expenses of doing business will continuously increase while his or her charges are fairly fixed by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Mesa divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will always require more and more lower profit cases simply to keep up with business expenses. You don’t want that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and financial future.

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

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

So above are 4 things to steer clear of: do it yourself divorce, old-fashioned full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and uninspiring me-too drone lawyers who are actually bad at the business of law practice.

So what do you in fact seek in a Mesa divorce attorney?

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by offering you 2 exceptional data that I did not believe when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to take full advantage of them in your Mesa 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 Mesa 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 Mesa divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Mesa divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this signifies that you only 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 concerns in your case and recommend the very best choices based upon legal guidance and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can determine they don’t know or don’t want you to know, simply hang up. They don’t yet get it. Carry on. Do not 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 time and money, but it literally empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all informationin your case. Likewise, there’s no 50-page paper copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to get through 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 Mesa 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 Mesa lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Mesa. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Mesa. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Mesa 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 Mesa:

Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Surprise, Tucson, Henderson, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, El Cajon, Las Cruces, Escondido, Temecula, Chula Vista, Murrieta, San Diego, Moreno Valley, Albuquerque, San Bernardino, Carlsbad, Oceanside, Rialto, Riverside, Victorville, Fontana, El Paso, Corona, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Pomona, Irvine