How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Orange California?  - Family Law Attorneys Orange - Divorce Attorney Orange California

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to get the very best divorce lawyer in Orange, California There are numerous divorce lawyers in Orange that will do an equally fine effort for you. It would be impossible to identify which one is the “best.”

The actual issue for you, the Orange divorce consumer, is just how to identify just one of those Orange best divorce attorneys at the right levels of representation and expense for the facts of your particular case – while staying away from every one of the usual, and often harmful, risks of the Orange divorce attorney selection decision.

If you understand what those risks are (I will tell you in this short article) and if you have the correct perspective, namely that you wish to make your Orange divorce attorney fit your situation and not enable the lawyer to force your situation to fit his or her rigid practice profile, then you enhance considerably your possibilities of nailing the Orange divorce attorney hiring decision. Getting you through that selection efficiently is the intention of this blog post.

To begin with, let’s list the 4 traits to stay clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download cost-free family law forms from California’s judicial council or family court sites. Those cost-free divorce forms are going to be uncompleted, obviously. You can at that point try to complete and submit the forms at your regional Orange County divorce court on your own without specialist assistance. This is possible – but highly improbable, extremely challenging, complex, aggravating and extremely lengthy.

DIY divorce would be practically out of the question, and not wise even to attempt, in any type of  elaborate or contended family law action. It would be highly improbable to be a success if you have minor children of the marriage or have any type of assets or financial obligations to be detailed in the case or have custody, visitation or support settlements in your proceedings. It would definitely be ill-advised 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 documents and procedures are created by attorneys to puzzle you so that you hire – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I don’t invest too much time on the DIY danger. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals that start the divorce process with the intent to try to obtain a cost-free divorce are most likely to  try DIY divorce whatever. Somehow, possibly financial, there is nothing I‘ve been able to uncover to encourage them not to.

DIY in Family Law is consistently fake saving. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up cases are a lot more challenging and expensive to correct and conclude. Don’t play this game. The system is created by attorneys to puzzle you and force you to employ a divorce attorney. There are currently affordable options readily available– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

 

2. Avoid Traditional Orange 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 they don’t have to like each other. They are either entirely or generally in agreement on all problems and are wise enough to understand that traditional full-representation divorce attorneys (with significant retainers and billable hrs) would be the only victors if they contended relatively trivial problems in their divorce.

Family Law Attorneys Orange - Divorce Attorney Orange CaliforniaTraditional complete representation by a local Orange divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce matter. It is highly likely to be a very good professional service, however it is really expensive.

If you have a contested 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 Orange divorce attorney is NOT to be avoided. It is a requirement.

A contested matter denotes that you and your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the matter. A complicated matter contains legal complexities such as tax problems, active business problems, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous additional complex legal issues. A high-value case means that your marital estate is huge. 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 think that you have a contested,complex or high-value matter, you do. Employ an experienced and expensive Orange divorce attorney for complete traditional representation. Try to find 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 Orange divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Orange divorce attorney ends up being a danger to your financial position. Avoid it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional Orange divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their complete representation service. In fact, they will try to frighten the crap out of you by informing you that you undeniably need to have their service which your case will get messed up without it.

That could happen– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll advise you next how to prevent potentially 90+% of the possible danger of getting your case messed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Orange divorce lawyer on a full representation basis.

Your case could also potentially get messed up if you DID employ a full representation Orange divorce lawyer. That’s also not probable, however it could possibly happen.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY happen if you employ a conventional complete representation Orange divorce lawyer to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be managed very well, however you will overbuy excessive services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no need for that to happen nowadays. Your parents had few other options on their family law hiring decisions. Your grandparents had no other options. You have lots of valid options to make your Orange uncontested divorce attorney hiring selection based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Orange divorce attorneys. Read on.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the biggest threat you deal with in your hiring selection in terms of damage to your future legal and financial security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge industry. And it is extremely harmful to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills use slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software, 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 Orange County divorce procedures, no regional understanding about Orange County rules of court, regional Orange County documents, regional practices or the policies of individual regional judges in the Orange area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within an entirely unregulated Wild-West industry widespread with all sort of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, however what you get for that $300 fee is remarkably little– just prepared California divorce forms. Any other services delivered are all up-sold on the basis that once they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – walk away from money already invested? You are at their mercy and you are entirely unguarded. And they realize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a good overview of merely some 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 always be dealing 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. No one will conduct any type of analysis on your case to secure you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer support will be terrible since it does not have to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to meet anybody at an online divorce mill as it is most likely that none of them are located in Orange and even in California

If you hire an online divorce mill believing you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your family wind up paying for their mistakes for several years, that is NOT a low-cost 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 pitfall to stay clear of in your Orange divorce lawyer hiring decision.

Nevertheless, the possible harm here is not big– nowhere near the damage done consistently 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 hire a Orange 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 badly as if you had actually employed a conventional complete representation Orange family law lawyer straight up.

Undoubtedly, you don’t want to employ a conventional complete representation Orange divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, however the essential factor here is that you don’t want to employ a conventional complete representation Orange divorce lawyer to handle your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

Family Law Attorneys Orange - Divorce Attorney Orange CaliforniaThe danger with hiring a Orange divorce lawyer that you discover ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re employing a second-rate Orange divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other Orange divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business however does nothing to set apart himself or herself from the Orange lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the exceptional solution to your case. You don’t want that lawyer.

You could do with a Orange divorce lawyer who is innovative, vibrant, distinct, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Orange divorce lawyer to safeguard your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even care for his or her own business interests strongly and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Orange lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

Nevertheless, you must not conclude that such a Orange divorce lawyer is extremely intelligent or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of charge for the lawyer to enroll in, the lawyer needs to then start to pay constantly increasing charges on a bid-basis, always contending against other regional Orange County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the leading page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer does not 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 does not keep bidding up his or her charges, she’ll not get sufficient cases 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 advertising charges they can pay– not based upon how great they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to match your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your case is the quantity of money s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and distinctiveness of his or her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Orange pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a highlighted position on the platform’s site and will get more clients, however his or her expenses of acquiring cases will continuously increase while his or her charges are relatively fixed by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Orange divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will always need more and more lower profit cases just to keep up with sales expenses. 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 use the same brain to care for your case as s/he utilized to screw his or her own business into the ground.

How to Find the Best Orange Divorce Lawyer – Family Law Attorneys Orange - Divorce Attorney Orange California

So above are 4 factors to keep away from: DIY divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and lackluster me-too drone attorneys who are truly bad at business.

So what do you in fact try to find in a Orange divorce lawyer?

Family Law Attorneys Orange - Divorce Attorney Orange CaliforniaBefore I tell you, I want to set the stage by giving you two impressive stats that I did not believe when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to make the most of them in your Orange 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 Orange 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 Orange divorce attorney:

  1. Licensed local Orange divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
  2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this indicates that you only buy the legal services your case needs. 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 submitted to court, recognize problem concerns in your case and recommend the best options based upon legal suggestions and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can see that they don’t understand or don’t want you to understand, just hang up. They don’t yet get it. Move on. Don’t inform them.
  3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and enterall of the personal data in your case.  This not only saves time and money, but it literally 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 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 Orange 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 Orange lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Orange. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Orange. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Orange 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 Orange:

Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Norwalk, Corona, Downey, Long Beach, Pomona, West Covina, El Monte, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Torrance, Riverside, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Inglewood, Fontana, Rialto, Moreno Valley, Burbank, San Bernardino, Murrieta, Temecula, Oceanside, Carlsbad, Palmdale, Santa Clarita, Victorville, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley

 

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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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