How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Riverside California?  - Divorce & Family Law in Riverside

It’s a trick question. You do not need to locate the very best divorce lawyer or attorney in Riverside, California There are a large number of divorce lawyers in Riverside that would likely do an every bit as good job for you. It would definitely be out of the question to establish which one is the “best.”

The correct question for you, the Riverside divorce consumer, is exactly how to find one of those Riverside top-notch divorce lawyers at the right levels of representation and also price for the realities of your individual case – while staying clear of every one of the common, and also often unsafe, challenges of the Riverside divorce attorney selection decision.

If you understand what those challenges are (I will tell you in this article) and also if you have the proper mindset, namely that you wish to make your Riverside divorce attorney fit your instance and also not enable the attorney to force your instance to fit his or her stiff practice profile, after that you increase significantly your chances of nailing the Riverside divorce attorney hiring decision. Getting you through that decision effectively is the purpose of this post.

To begin with, let’s mention the 4 things to stay away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire free family law documents from California’s judicial council or family court sites. Those free divorce documents are going to be uncompleted, of course. You can then attempt to finish and also record the documents at your neighborhood Riverside County divorce court by yourself without professional assistance. This is possible – nevertheless extremely unlikely, extremely difficult, complicated, discouraging and also very lengthy.

DIY divorce would certainly be essentially out of the question, and also not smart even to try, in any type of  elaborate or disputed family law case. It would certainly be extremely unlikely to be effective if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any type of assets or financial debts to be specified in the event or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your matter. It would absolutely be reckless in a matter entailing domestic physical violence. DIY would certainly likewise be hard if you work or if you position any type of worth on your own time. Family law documents and also processeses are created by lawyers 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 risk. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals that begin the divorce procedure with the intent to attempt to get a free divorce are most likely to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce no matter what. For some reason, probably financial, there is absolutely nothing I have actually had the ability to discover to encourage them not to.

DIY in Family Law is consistently fake economy. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and also screwed-up cases are far more problematic and also expensive to correct and also conclude. Do not play this game. The system is created by lawyers to puzzle you and also force you to hire a divorce attorney. There are now cost-efficient alternatives offered– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

 

2. Avoid Traditional Riverside 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 type of concerns, including the divorce itself. The parties do not need to be pleased and also they do not need to care for each other. They are either entirely or generally in agreement on all concerns and also are smart enough to understand that traditional full-representation divorce lawyers (with huge retainers and also billable hours) would certainly be the only winners if they disputed reasonably trivial concerns in their divorce.

Divorce & Family Law in RiversideConventional complete representation by a local Riverside divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce litigation. It is extremely likely to be a very good service, yet it is very expensive.

If you have a disputed matter, a complicated matter, a high-value matter or a matter that includes domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a Riverside divorce attorney is NOT to be avoided. It is a requirement.

A contested matter denotes that you and also your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter contains legal complexities such as tax concerns, active business concerns, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of countless additional complicated legal issues. A high-value case denotes that your marital estate is huge. There is no particular dollar limit. Definitely, 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 disputed,complex or high-value matter, you do. Work with an experienced and also high priced Riverside divorce attorney for complete traditional representation. Seek a certified Family Law specialist. You will not be sorry you did.

If you do NOT have a disputed, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT require traditional complete representation by a Riverside divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Riverside divorce attorney becomes a risk to your financial position. Avoid it.

Obviously, if you call or email a traditional Riverside divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not require their complete representation service. In fact, they will attempt to terrify the crap out of you by telling you that you undeniably are in need of their service which your case will get screwed up without it.

That could well transpire– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll advise you next how to steer clear of potentially 90+% of the possible risk of getting your case screwed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Riverside divorce attorney on a complete representation basis.

Your case might likewise potentially get screwed up if you DID hire a complete representation Riverside divorce attorney. That’s likewise not likely, but it could possibly take place.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a traditional complete representation Riverside divorce attorney to manage 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 unneeded services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no need for that to take place any longer. Your parents had few other alternatives on their family law hiring decisions. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have many valid alternatives to make your Riverside uncontested divorce attorney hiring decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Riverside divorce lawyers. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

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

Online divorce mills use slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software application, costs lower than MOST lawyers, no legal recommendations, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of Riverside County divorce procedures, no local understanding about Riverside County rules of court, local Riverside County documents, local practices or the policies of individual local judges in the Riverside area and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within an entirely uncontrolled Wild-West industry rampant with all kinds of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, but what you get for that $300 charge is remarkably little– just prepared California 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 spent? You are at their whim and you are entirely unprotected. And they know it!

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

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll always be dealing with low-level, untrained, 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 financial damage. Customer support will be dreadful since it does not need to be anything else. You will never be able to consult with anyone at an online divorce mill as it is likely that none of them are located in Riverside or even in California

If you hire an online divorce mill believing you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up paying for their errors for 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 newest pitfall to stay away from in your Riverside divorce lawyer hiring decision.

Nevertheless, the possible damage here is not massive– 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 hire a Riverside divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending on how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as terribly as if you had actually hired a traditional complete representation Riverside family law attorney straight up.

Clearly, you do not wish to hire a traditional complete representation Riverside divorce attorney you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the crucial element here is that you do not wish to hire a traditional complete representation Riverside divorce attorney to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

Divorce & Family Law in RiversideThe risk with hiring a Riverside divorce attorney that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re employing an uninspired Riverside divorce attorney– a drone who just stands in line with all other Riverside divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your trade but does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Riverside lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the best resolution to your case. You do not want that lawyer.

You wish to have a Riverside divorce lawyer who is innovative, bold, distinct, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Riverside divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even look after his or her own law practice interests aggressively and decisively? You’re searching for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the Riverside lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

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

Nevertheless, you need to not consider that such a Riverside divorce lawyer is extremely smart or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer will need to then begin to pay constantly increasing costs on a bid-basis, always contending against other local Riverside County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the top 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 or her costs, she’ll not get enough business to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top extremely few lawyers in each town taking almost all cases– based upon how much marketing costs they can pay– not based upon how good they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to fit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your case is the quantity of cash 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 Riverside pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a highlighted position on the platform’s website and will get more sales, but his or her expenses of getting cases will constantly increase while his or her costs are reasonably set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Riverside divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will always require a growing number of lower profit cases just to keep up with business expenses. You do not want that business-foolishness in someone 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 or her own law practice into the ground.

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

So above are 4 things to avoid: DIY divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and uncontrolled online divorce mills and lackluster me-too drone lawyers who are really bad at law practice business.

So what do you in fact look out for in a Riverside divorce attorney?

Divorce & Family Law in RiversideBefore I tell you, I wish to set the stage by offering you two amazing stats that I did not presume true when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to maximize them in your Riverside 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 Riverside 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 Riverside divorce attorney:

  1. Licensed local Riverside divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
  2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this means that you only buy the legal services your case needs. You will typically do your own filing of docs at court and arrange for the service of filed docs on your spouse/partner. The divorce lawyer will evaluate your docs before they are submitted to court, identify problem concerns in your case and recommend the best alternatives based upon legal recommendations and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can determine they do not know or do not want you to know, just hang up. They do not yet get it. Move on. Do not inform them.
  3. Uses online divorce software that enables you to log into a client portal and enterall of the details in your case.  This not only conserves money and time, but it in fact 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 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 Riverside 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 Riverside lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Riverside. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Riverside. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Riverside 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 Riverside:

Rialto, Corona, San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Pomona, Orange, Murrieta, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Fullerton, Irvine, West Covina, Garden Grove, Temecula, Costa Mesa, El Monte, Norwalk, Huntington Beach, Victorville, Downey, Pasadena, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oceanside, Burbank, Torrance, Inglewood, Carlsbad, Palmdale

 

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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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