How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Nashville Tennessee?  - Nashville Divorce Attorney

It’s a trick question. You don’t need to get the best divorce lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee There are many divorce attorneys in Nashville that will do an equally great undertaking for you. It would definitely be impracticable to decide which one is the “absolute best.”

The real issue for you, the Nashville divorce client, is precisely how to find just one of those Nashville top-notch divorce attorneys at the perfect standards of assistance and also cost for the facts of your particular case – while steering clear of all of the common, and also in some cases unsafe, pitfalls of the Nashville divorce attorney hiring decision.

If you know what those pitfalls are (I will inform you in this blog post) and also if you have the correct attitude, specifically that you want to make your Nashville divorce attorney fit your instance and also not permit the lawyer to compel your instance to fit his or her inflexible practice profile, after that you raise significantly your possibilities of nailing the Nashville divorce attorney hiring decision. Getting you through that choice efficiently is the goal of this article.

First, let’s list the 4 traits to steer clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download free family law documents from Tennessee’s judicial council or family court internet sites. Those free divorce documents will be blank, of course. You can at that point attempt to complete and also record the documents at your regional Davidson County divorce court on your own without specialist aid. This is feasible – nevertheless highly improbable, really difficult, complex, aggravating and also incredibly slow.

Do it yourself divorce would be practically unfeasible, and also not wise even to try, in any  complicated or contended family law matter. It would be highly improbable to be successful if you have minor children of the marriage or have any property or debts to be detailed in the event or have custody, visitation or support settlements in your proceedings. It would certainly be ill-advised in a matter including domestic violence. Do it yourself would additionally be hard if you have a job or if you put any kind of worth on your own time. Family law documents and also procedures are made by attorneys to confuse you to make sure that you work with – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I don’t spend excessive time on the do it yourself danger. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals that begin the divorce process with the intent to attempt to get a cost-free divorce are going to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce whatever. Somehow, most likely financial, there is absolutely nothing I‘ve been able to discover to persuade them not to.

DIY in Family Law is typically false saving. You WILL probably screw it up, and also screwed-up cases are a lot more challenging and also expensive to correct and also conclude. Don’t play this game. The system is made by attorneys to confuse you and also compel you to hire a divorce attorney. There are now affordable options available– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is simply one in which the parties will not be challenging any issues, including the divorce itself. The parties don’t need to be happy and also they don’t need to care for each other. They are either entirely or generally in agreement on all issues and also are wise enough to understand that conventional full-representation divorce attorneys (with substantial retainers and also billable hours) would be the only winners if they contended reasonably inconsequential issues in their divorce.

Conventional complete representation by a neighborhood Nashville divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce litigation. It is highly likely to be a good service, yet it is high priced.

If you have a contested matter, a complex matter, a high-value matter or a matter that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Nashville divorce attorney is NOT to be evaded. It is a requirement.

A disputed matter means that you and also your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the matter. A complicated matter contains legal intricacies such as tax issues, active business issues, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of countless other complex legal situations. A high-value case denotes 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 matter.

If you suspect that you have a contested,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Employ an expert and also high priced Nashville divorce attorney for complete traditional representation. Look for 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 need traditional complete representation by a Nashville divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Nashville divorce attorney ends up being a danger to your financial position. Avoid it.

Naturally, if you call or email a conventional Nashville divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their complete representation service. In fact, they will attempt to terrify the crap out of you by sharing with you that you undeniably need their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That might transpire– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll advise you next how to steer clear of perhaps 90+% of the potential danger of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T hire a conventional Nashville divorce lawyer on a complete representation basis.

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

However, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a conventional complete representation Nashville divorce lawyer 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 unneeded services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to take place nowadays. Your mothers and fathers had few other options on their family law hiring options. Your grandparents had no other options. You have lots of legitimate options to make your Nashville uncontested divorce attorney hiring choice based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Nashville divorce attorneys. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the biggest threat you are confronted by in your hiring choice in regards to damage to your future legal and financial safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is incredibly unsafe to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills offer slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, charges lower than MOST attorneys, no legal recommendations, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of Davidson County divorce policies, no local understanding about Davidson County rules of court, local Davidson County documents, local practices or the policies of specific local judges in the Nashville area and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a totally uncontrolled Wild-West industry rampant with all kinds of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, however what you get for that $300 charge is remarkably little– just prepared Tennessee divorce documents. Any other services offered 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 unguarded. And they recognize it!

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

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be contending with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over personnel, 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 safeguard you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer support will be terrible due to the fact that it does not need to be anything else. You will never ever be able to consult with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none are located in Nashville or even in Tennessee

If you work with an online divorce mill believing you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your family wind up spending for their errors for many years, that is NOT a cheap 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 most recent risk to steer clear of in your Nashville divorce lawyer hiring decision.

However, the potential damage here is not significant– nowhere near the damage done routinely 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 Nashville divorce lawyer 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 badly as if you had actually hired a conventional complete representation Nashville family law lawyer straight up.

Obviously, you don’t want to hire a conventional complete representation Nashville divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, however the essential factor here is that you don’t want to hire a conventional complete representation Nashville divorce lawyer to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The danger with hiring a Nashville divorce lawyer that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a mediocre Nashville divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other Nashville divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business however does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the Nashville lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the best resolution to your case. You don’t want that lawyer.

You would like a Nashville divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, one-of-a-kind, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Nashville divorce lawyer to take care of your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even take care of his or her own business interests aggressively and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Nashville 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 join, which is why every divorce lawyer in Davidson County will have registered. So you should not disqualify a Nashville divorce lawyer just because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you should not think that such a Nashville divorce lawyer is really shrewd 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 begin to pay continuously increasing charges on a bid-basis, constantly contending versus other local Davidson County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the leading page of the platform’s website. If that lawyer does not 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 does not keep bidding up his or her charges, she’ll not get enough clients to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading really few attorneys in each town taking almost all the business– based on how much advertising charges they can pay– not based on 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 trade is the amount 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 Nashville pays more to the mass-lawyer finder company and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a highlighted position on the platform’s website and will get more business, however his or her costs of doing business will constantly rise while his or her charges are reasonably set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Nashville divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will constantly need increasingly more lower revenue cases just to stay on top of sales costs. You don’t want that business-foolishness in somebody you will rely on with your legal and financial future.

And yes, that lawyer is going to utilize the very same brain to take care of your case as s/he used to screw his or her own business into the ground.

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

So above are 4 problems to keep clear of: do it yourself divorce, conventional full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and lackluster me-too drone attorneys who are actually bad at law practice business.

So what do you in fact seek in a Nashville divorce lawyer?

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by giving you 2 remarkable stats that I did not presume true when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to take full advantage of them in your Nashville divorce lawyer hiring 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 Nashville 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 Nashville divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Nashville divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this denotes that you just buy the legal services your case actually requires. You will generally 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 filed, recognize problem issues in your case and recommend the best options based upon legal recommendations and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can see that they don’t know or don’t want you to know, just hang up. They don’t yet get it. Carry on. Don’t educate them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables you to log into a client portal and inputall of the personal data in your case.  This not only saves time and money, but it actually empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all informationin your case. Also, there’s no 50-page hard copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to get through 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 Nashville 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 Nashville lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Nashville. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Nashville. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Nashville 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 Nashville:

Murfreesboro, Clarksville, Huntsville, Chattanooga, Evansville, Louisville, Knoxville, Lexington, Birmingham, Memphis, Sandy Springs, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Athens, Indianapolis, Saint Louis, Montgomery, Columbus, Dayton, Macon, Springfield, Little Rock, Augusta, Jackson, Charlotte, Fort Wayne, Columbia, Winston-Salem, Joliet, High Point