How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Plano Texas?  - Divorce & Family Law in Plano

It’s a trick question. You do not want to find the most effective divorce attorney in Plano, Texas There are a lot of divorce attorneys in Plano that would likely do a just as fine effort for you. It would undoubtedly be impracticable to figure out which one is the “best.”

The correct concern for you, the Plano divorce consumer, is how to choose just one of those Plano best divorce attorneys at the proper levels of assistance and price for the realities of your unique circumstances – while keeping away from all of the typical, and occasionally hazardous, pitfalls of the Plano divorce attorney hiring choice.

If you understand what those pitfalls are (I will tell you in this article) and if you have the correct mindset, namely that you want to make your Plano divorce attorney fit your situation and not allow the lawyer to force your situation to fit his/her stiff practice profile, then you raise greatly your opportunities of nailing the Plano divorce attorney hiring choice. Getting you through that decision successfully is the intention of this post.

Initially, let’s mention the 4 factors to stay clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is feasible, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire cost-free family law forms from Texas’s judicial council or family court websites. Those cost-free divorce forms are going to be blank, obviously. You can then attempt to complete and record the forms at your local Collin County divorce court on your own without expert assistance. This is feasible – but extremely unlikely, very challenging, complicated, irritating and very lengthy.

DIY divorce would be essentially out of the question, and not wise even to try, in any kind of  complex or contested family law action. It would be extremely unlikely to be effective if you have minor children of the marriage or have any kind of property or financial debts to be specified in the case or have custody, visitation or assistance settlements in your case. It would absolutely be reckless in a matter involving domestic violence. DIY would additionally be hard if you have a job or if you position any sort of worth on your own time. Family law forms and processeses are made by attorneys to puzzle you to ensure that you hire – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I do not invest way too much time on the DIY threat. 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 regardless of what. Somehow, possibly economic, there is absolutely nothing I have actually been able to find to encourage them not to.

DIY in Family Law is always fake economy. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and screwed-up cases are much more challenging and very expensive to correct and complete. Don’t play this game. The system is made by attorneys to puzzle you and force you to employ a divorce attorney. There are now affordable options available– see below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the parties will not be contesting any kind of concerns, including the divorce itself. The parties do not have to be happy and they do not have to like each other. They are either totally or mostly in agreement on all concerns and are wise enough to understand that traditional full-representation divorce attorneys (with substantial retainers and billable hrs) would be the only winners if they contested fairly unimportant concerns in their divorce.

Traditional full representation by a regional Plano divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce matter. It is extremely likely to be an excellent service, but it is way over-priced.

If you have a contested 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 Plano divorce attorney is NOT to be refrained from. It is a prerequisite.

A disputed matter signifies that you and your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter consists of legal complexities such as tax concerns, active business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of countless additional intricate legal scenarios. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is very large. There is no particular dollar limit. Absolutely, 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 contested,complex or high-value matter, you do. Employ an expert and high priced Plano divorce attorney for full conventional 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 require conventional full representation by a Plano divorce attorney. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a Plano divorce attorney ends up being a risk to your economic position. Stay clear of it.

Obviously, if you call or email a traditional Plano divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not require their full representation service. In fact, they will attempt to terrify the crap out of you by telling you that you positively require their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That could possibly transpire– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll share with you next how to steer clear of potentially 90+% of the prospective threat of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T employ a traditional Plano divorce lawyer on a full representation basis.

Your case could likewise potentially get messed up if you DID employ a full representation Plano divorce lawyer. That’s likewise not likely, but it could take place.

However, what will DEFINITELY take place if you employ a traditional full representation Plano divorce lawyer to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case may be managed extremely well, but you will overbuy needless services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no need for that to take place anymore. Your mothers and fathers had few other options on their family law hiring options. Your grandparents had no other options. You have many valid options to make your Plano uncontested divorce attorney hiring decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Plano divorce attorneys. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the greatest risk you encounter in your hiring decision in terms of damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is very hazardous to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills provide slick sites, wicked-cool divorce computer software, charges lower than MOST attorneys, no legal advice, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance coverage, no understanding of Collin County divorce procedures, no local understanding about Collin County guidelines of court, local Collin County forms, local practices or the policies of specific local judges in the Plano region and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within an entirely uncontrolled Wild-West industry rampant with all type of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill charges average about $300, but what you get for that $300 charge is remarkably little– just prepared Texas divorce forms. Any other services provided are all up-sold on the basis that when they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore money already invested? You are at their whim and you are totally 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 frauds and up-sells to be discovered in the online divorce industry.

If you hire an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be contending with low-level, inexperienced, disinterested, high turn-over staff, call center workers 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 protect you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Client assistance will be dreadful because it does not have to be anything else. You will never ever be able to consult with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none of them lie in Plano and even in Texas

If you hire an online divorce mill thinking you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your household wind up spending for their errors 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 directory sites like Avvo, FindLaw, LegalZoom, Justia, Google Screened, Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) and now even Yelp. This is the newest pitfall to stay clear of in your Plano divorce lawyer hiring choice.

However, the prospective damage here is not big– nowhere near the damage done regularly by non-lawyer online divorce mills or undoubtedly the damage likely to be done by you to your own case with DIY divorce.

If you hire a Plano 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, but not as severely as if you had hired a traditional full representation Plano family law lawyer straight up.

Undoubtedly, you do not wish to employ a traditional full representation Plano divorce lawyer you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the essential element here is that you do not wish to employ a traditional full representation Plano divorce lawyer to handle your simple uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The threat with hiring a Plano divorce lawyer that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring an average Plano divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other Plano divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Plano lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the best solution to your case. You do not want that lawyer.

You wish to have a Plano divorce lawyer who is creative, strong, one-of-a-kind, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Plano divorce lawyer to take care of your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even look after his/her own law practice interests aggressively and decisively? You’re looking for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Plano 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 join, which is why every divorce lawyer in Collin County will have joined. So you need to not disqualify a Plano divorce lawyer just because s/he has an Avvo account.

However, you need to not expect that such a Plano divorce lawyer is very good or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are totally free for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer must then begin to pay constantly increasing charges on a bid-basis, constantly contending against other local Collin County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the leading 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/her charges, she’ll not get enough clients to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading very few attorneys in each town taking almost all cases– 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 fit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your business is the amount of money s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and distinctiveness of his/her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in Plano 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, but his/her costs of getting business will continuously rise while his/her charges are fairly set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Plano divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will constantly require more and more lower profit cases just to keep up with business costs. You do not desire that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and economic future.

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

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

So above are 4 concerns to stay clear of: DIY divorce, conventional full-service lawyer representation in simple uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and lackluster me-too drone attorneys who are really bad at business.

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

Before I tell you, I wish to set the stage by offering you two remarkable stats that I did not presume true when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to maximize them in your Plano divorce lawyer selection 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 Plano 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 Plano divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Plano divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this denotes that you just pay for the legal services your case requires. You will normally 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, identify problem issues in your case and suggest the very best options based upon legal advice and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can determine they do not know or do not desire you to know, just hang up. They do not yet get it. Carry on. Don’t educate them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables 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 in fact empowers you in your own case. You are the source of all datain your case. Also, there’s no 50-page hard copyone-size-fits-all questionnaire for you to complete 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 Plano 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 Plano lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Plano. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Plano. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Plano 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 Plano:

Frisco, Carrollton, McKinney, Lewisville, Dallas, Irving, Mesquite, Grand Prairie, Denton, Arlington, Fort Worth, Tyler, Waco, Wichita Falls, Killeen, Norman, College Station, Shreveport, Oklahoma City, Abilene, Round Rock, Austin, Broken Arrow, Tulsa, Houston, Pearland, Beaumont, San Antonio, Little Rock, Lubbock