How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Oakland California?  - Best Oakland Divorce Attorney Alameda County

It’s a trick question. You don’t need to identify the absolute best divorce lawyer or attorney in Oakland, California There are lots of divorce lawyers in Oakland that would certainly do an every bit as excellent job for you. It would definitely be inconceivable to figure which one is the “best.”

The legitimate concern for you, the Oakland divorce consumer, is exactly how to choose just one of those Oakland top-notch divorce attorneys at the exact standards of representation and expense for the realities of your specific case – while steering clear of all of the typical, and in some cases dangerous, risks of the Oakland divorce lawyer hiring decision.

If you recognize what those risks are (I will certainly advise you in this short article) and if you have the correct perspective, namely that you wish to make your Oakland divorce lawyer fit your instance and not enable the lawyer to compel your instance to fit his or her inflexible practice profile, then you increase greatly your possibilities of nailing the Oakland divorce lawyer hiring decision. Getting you through that decision efficiently is the purpose of this blog post.

To begin with, let’s note the 4 aspects to steer clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download totally free family law documents from California’s judicial council or family court web sites. Those totally free divorce documents will be uncompleted, obviously. You can then try to finish and submit the documents at your neighborhood Alameda County divorce court on your own without professional assistance. This is possible – nevertheless highly improbable, extremely difficult, confusing, frustrating and incredibly time-consuming.

DIY divorce would certainly be practically unachievable, and not smart even to try, in any  complicated or contested family law case. It would certainly be highly improbable to be effective if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any assets or debts to be specified in case or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your proceedings. It would definitely be reckless in a matter including domestic physical violence. DIY would certainly additionally be challenging if you work or if you put any type of worth on your own time. Family law forms and procedures are developed by attorneys to confuse you to ensure that you hire – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I don’t spend way too much time on the do it yourself risk. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that people that begin the divorce procedure with the intent to try to obtain a totally free divorce are most likely to  try Do-It-Yourself divorce whatever. For some reason, possibly economic, there is nothing I‘ve been able to discover to convince them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is always false affordability. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up cases are a lot more troublesome and really expensive to deal with and complete. Don’t play this game. The system is developed by attorneys to confuse you and compel you to hire a divorce lawyer. There are now cost-efficient options offered– see below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is just one in which the parties will not be challenging any problems, including the divorce itself. The parties don’t have to be happy and they don’t have to like each other. They are either totally or mostly in agreement on all problems and are smart enough to understand that standard full-representation divorce attorneys (with significant retainers and billable hours) would certainly be the only victors if they contested relatively trivial problems in their divorce.

Conventional complete representation by a local Oakland divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all aspects of your divorce litigation. It is highly likely to be a good service, yet it is high priced.

If you have a disputed matter, a complicated matter, a high-value matter or a matter that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Oakland divorce lawyer is NOT to be avoided. It is a necessity.

A contested matter signifies that you and your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complicated matter has legal intricacies such as tax problems, current business problems, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of numerous additional intricate legal issues. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is large. There is no particular 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,complex or high-value matter, you do. Work with an expert and expensive Oakland divorce lawyer for complete conventional representation. Seek a certified Family Law specialist. You will certainly not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a disputed, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT require conventional complete representation by a Oakland divorce lawyer. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Oakland divorce lawyer becomes a threat to your economic position. Avoid it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional Oakland divorce lawyer, they will not tell you that you do not require their complete representation service. In fact, they will try to terrify the crap out of you by telling you that you undeniably are in need of 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 inform you next how to stay clear of potentially 90+% of the possible risk of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T hire a conventional Oakland divorce lawyer on a full representation basis.

Your case might also potentially get messed up if you DID hire a full representation Oakland divorce lawyer. That’s also not likely, however it could possibly take place.

However, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a conventional complete representation Oakland divorce lawyer to handle 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 excessive services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no requirement for that to take place any longer. Your parents had few other options on their family law hiring choices. Your grandparents had no other options. You have many legitimate options to make your Oakland uncontested divorce lawyer hiring decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Oakland divorce attorneys. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the most significant danger you are confronted by in your hiring decision in regards to damage to your future legal and economic security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge industry. And it is incredibly dangerous to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills provide slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software application, charges lower than MOST attorneys, no legal suggestions, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of Alameda County divorce procedures, no regional understanding about Alameda County rules of court, regional Alameda County forms, regional practices or the policies of individual regional judges in the Oakland 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 incredibly little– simply prepared California divorce documents. Any other services provided are all up-sold on the basis that when they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – walk away from cash already spent? You are at their mercy and you are totally unguarded. And they recognize it!

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

If you hire an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, inexperienced, indifferent, high turn-over personnel, call center employees and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will carry out any type of analysis on your case to protect you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer support will be terrible since it doesn’t have to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to meet with anyone at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none are located in Oakland or perhaps in California

If you hire an online divorce mill believing you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your family wind up spending for their errors for many 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 risk to steer clear of in your Oakland divorce lawyer hiring decision.

However, the possible harm here is not big– nowhere near the damage done consistently 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 Oakland divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending on just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, however not as badly as if you had actually employed a conventional complete representation Oakland family law lawyer directly.

Undoubtedly, you don’t want to hire a conventional complete representation Oakland divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, however the crucial aspect here is that you don’t want to hire a conventional complete representation Oakland divorce lawyer to handle your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The risk with hiring a Oakland divorce lawyer that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a mediocre Oakland divorce lawyer– a drone who simply stands in line with all other Oakland divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your trade however does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Oakland lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the best solution to your case. You don’t want to have that lawyer.

You want to get a Oakland divorce lawyer who is innovative, bold, one-of-a-kind, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Oakland divorce lawyer to take care of your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even take care of his or her own business interests aggressively and decisively? You’re looking for a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Oakland lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

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

However, you ought to not think that such a Oakland divorce lawyer is extremely effective or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are totally free for the lawyer to sign up, the lawyer will need to then begin to pay constantly increasing charges on a bid-basis, always battling against other regional Alameda County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the leading page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer doesn’t pay more, s/he’ll be on page 3 or 5 of the mass-lawyer site in even a medium-sized town. If that lawyer doesn’t keep bidding up his or her charges, she’ll not get adequate trade to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading extremely few attorneys in each town taking almost all clients– based upon just how much marketing charges they can pay– not based upon how good they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to match 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 Oakland 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 business, however his or her costs of doing business will constantly rise while his or her charges are relatively fixed by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Oakland divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always require a growing number of lower revenue cases simply to keep up with business costs. You don’t want that business-foolishness in somebody you will rely on with your legal and economic future.

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

How to Find the Best Oakland Divorce Lawyer – Best Oakland Divorce Attorney Alameda County

So above are 4 situations to refrain from using: do it yourself divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and boring me-too drone attorneys who are really bad at business.

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

Before I advise you, I want to set the stage by providing you two exceptional statistics that I did not accept when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to take full advantage of them in your Oakland 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 Oakland 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 Oakland divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Oakland 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 examine your docs before they are submitted to court, recognize problem issues in your case and suggest the very best options based upon legal suggestions and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can see that they don’t understand or don’t want you to understand, simply hang up. They don’t yet get it. Carry on. Don’t inform them.
3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and enterall of the information in your case.  This not only saves time and money, but it in fact 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 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 Oakland 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 Oakland lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Oakland. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Oakland. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Oakland 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 Oakland:

Richmond, Daly City, Hayward, San Mateo, Concord, Vallejo, Antioch, Sunnyvale, Fairfield, Santa Clara, San Jose, Santa Rosa, Stockton, Elk Grove, Sacramento, Modesto, Roseville, Salinas, Fresno, Clovis, Reno, Visalia, Santa Maria, Bakersfield, Ventura, Oxnard, Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, Lancaster, Thousand Oaks