How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania?  - Best Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Divorce Lawyer Allegheny County

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to identify the most effective divorce lawyer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania There are numerous divorce lawyers in Pittsburgh that would do an every bit as excellent effort for you. It would definitely be out of the question to identify which one is the “very best.”

The correct question for you, the Pittsburgh divorce consumer, is the way to locate just one of those Pittsburgh best divorce attorneys at the correct levels of assistance and cost for the realities of your specific circumstances – while avoiding all of the typical, and sometimes dangerous, pitfalls of the Pittsburgh divorce attorney selection choice.

If you understand what those pitfalls are (I will certainly tell you in this blog post) and if you have the correct attitude, namely that you want to make your Pittsburgh divorce attorney fit your case and not permit the attorney to compel your case to fit his/her stiff practice profile, then you increase substantially your chances of nailing the Pittsburgh divorce attorney hiring choice. Getting you through that selection efficiently is the purpose of this post.

Initially, let’s specify the 4 points to avoid:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is feasible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download totally free family law forms from Pennsylvania’s judicial council or family court sites. Those totally free divorce forms are going to be blank, of course. You can at that point try to complete and record the forms at your regional Allegheny County divorce court on your own without expert assistance. This is feasible – but extremely unlikely, really challenging, complex, irritating and extremely lengthy.

Do it yourself divorce would be essentially unachievable, and not sensible even to attempt, in any type of  complex or contended family law case. It would be extremely unlikely to be effective if you have minor children of the marriage or have any type of assets or financial debts to be listed in case or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your matter. It would absolutely be reckless in a matter involving domestic physical violence. Do it yourself would additionally be hard if you have a job or if you position any sort of value on your own time. Family law forms and processeses are developed by attorneys to perplex you to make sure that you employ – a lawyer.

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 get a cost-free divorce are most likely to  try DIY divorce whatever. Somehow, probably financial, there is absolutely nothing I have actually had the ability to discover to encourage them not to.

DIY in Family Law is always false economy. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up matters are a lot more challenging and expensive to deal with and complete. Don’t play this game. The system is developed by attorneys to perplex you and compel you to employ a divorce attorney. There are now cost-efficient choices readily available– see listed below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the litigants will not be challenging any type of problems, including the divorce itself. The litigants don’t have to be happy and they don’t have to care for each other. They are either entirely or mainly in agreement on all problems and are sensible enough to acknowledge that standard full-representation divorce attorneys (with significant retainers and billable hrs) would be the only winners if they contended fairly trivial problems in their divorce.

Conventional full representation by a regional Pittsburgh divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce litigation. It is extremely likely to be an excellent service, but it is expensive.

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

A contested matter indicates that you and your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the matter. A complicated matter has legal complexities such as tax problems, active business problems, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of many other intricate legal issues. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is very large. There is no specific dollar limit. Certainly, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or higher, that is a high-value matter.

If you believe that you have a disputed,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Hire an expert and high priced Pittsburgh divorce attorney for full conventional representation. Try to find 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 need conventional full representation by a Pittsburgh divorce attorney. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a Pittsburgh divorce attorney ends up being a threat to your financial position. Avoid it.

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

That could occur– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll inform you next how to steer clear of perhaps 90+% of the possible risk of getting your case screwed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional Pittsburgh divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case might also perhaps get screwed up if you DID employ a full representation Pittsburgh divorce attorney. That’s also not likely, however it could occur.

However, what will DEFINITELY occur if you employ a conventional full representation Pittsburgh divorce attorney to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be handled effectively, however you will overbuy excessive services and you will overpay for them.

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

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the greatest threat you are confronted by in your hiring selection in regards to damage to your future legal and financial safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial market. And it is extremely dangerous to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills offer 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 Allegheny County divorce policies, no local understanding about Allegheny County guidelines of court, local Allegheny County forms, local practices or the policies of individual local judges in the Pittsburgh local area and no expert 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 extremely little– simply prepared Pennsylvania divorce forms. Any other services supplied are all up-sold on the basis that once they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore cash already invested? You are at their mercy and you are entirely vulnerable. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s website for a great assessment of just some of the more typical scams and up-sells to be experienced in the online divorce market.

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be dealing with low-level, inexperienced, indifferent, high turn-over personnel, call center staff members 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 financial damage. Customer support will be terrible due to the fact that it doesn’t have to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to meet with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is most likely that none of them are located in Pittsburgh or perhaps in Pennsylvania

If you employ an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your family wind up spending for their errors for many 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 avoid in your Pittsburgh divorce lawyer hiring choice.

However, the possible harm here is not huge– 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 employ a Pittsburgh divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending upon just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, however not as terribly as if you had actually employed a conventional full representation Pittsburgh family law attorney straight up.

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

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

You want to get a Pittsburgh divorce lawyer who is creative, vibrant, distinct, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you employ a Pittsburgh divorce lawyer to take care of your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even look after his/her own law practice interests strongly and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Pittsburgh lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and not doing anything else.

Mass-lawyer finder platforms like Avvo are free of cost to sign up with, which is why every divorce lawyer in Allegheny County will have signed up. So you need to not disqualify a Pittsburgh divorce lawyer just because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you need to not think that such a Pittsburgh divorce lawyer is really wise or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of cost for the lawyer to sign up, the lawyer needs to then begin to pay continually increasing charges on a bid-basis, constantly competing versus other local Allegheny County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the leading page of the platform’s website. If that lawyer doesn’t 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 doesn’t keep bidding up his/her charges, she’ll not get adequate clients to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading really few attorneys in each town taking almost all clients– based upon just how much advertising charges they can pay– not based upon how good they are or on how they have configured their offerings to match your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your business is the amount of cash 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 Pittsburgh 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 business, however his/her expenses of working will constantly rise while his/her charges are fairly set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Pittsburgh divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will constantly need more and more lower revenue cases simply to stay on top of sales expenses. You don’t want that business-foolishness in somebody you will trust with your legal and financial future.

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

How to Find the Best Pittsburgh Divorce Lawyer – Best Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Divorce Lawyer Allegheny County

So above are 4 things to stay away from: do it yourself divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and uninspiring me-too drone attorneys who are truly bad at business.

So what do you actually seek in a Pittsburgh divorce attorney?

Before I tell you, I want to set the stage by offering you 2 impressive data that I did not presume true 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 Pittsburgh divorce lawyer employing choice:

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 Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Pittsburgh divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this denotes that you only purchase the legal services your case needs. You will generally do your own filing of docs at court and schedule 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 suggestions and local 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, simply hang up. They don’t 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 details in your case.  This not only conserves time and money, but it in fact empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain 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 Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Pittsburgh. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Pittsburgh. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Pittsburgh 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 Pittsburgh:

Akron, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Washington, D. C., Alexandria, Baltimore, Toledo, Detroit, Warren, Sterling Heights, Farmington Hills, Dayton, Ann Arbor, Allentown, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Syracuse, Fort Wayne, Lansing, Lexington, Edison, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Elizabeth, Newark, Paterson, Newport News, Hampton, High Point