How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in San Francisco California?  - Best San Francisco, California Divorce Attorney San Francisco County

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to get the very best divorce lawyer or attorney in San Francisco, California There are several divorce attorneys in San Francisco who would certainly do an every bit as great undertaking for you. It would be impracticable to figure out which one is the “very best.”

The legitimate question for you, the San Francisco divorce buyer, is the way to choose one of those San Francisco top-notch divorce attorneys at the ideal levels of assistance and expense for the facts of your unique circumstances – while steering clear of all of the typical, and often dangerous, challenges of the San Francisco divorce attorney hiring choice.

If you recognize what those challenges are (I will inform you in this article) and if you have the appropriate perspective, namely that you intend to make your San Francisco divorce attorney fit your case and not enable the attorney to require your case to fit his or her inflexible practice profile, then you increase greatly your possibilities of nailing the San Francisco divorce attorney hiring choice. Getting you through that decision effectively is the purpose of this post.

To start with, let’s specify the 4 traits to keep away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire free family law documents from California’s judicial council or family court internet sites. Those free divorce documents will be uncompleted, obviously. You can at that point try to finish and file the documents at your regional San Francisco County divorce court on your own without expert assistance. This is possible – nevertheless highly unlikely, very challenging, complex, discouraging and exceptionally slow.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be essentially out of the question, and not sensible even to attempt, in any type of  elaborate or contested family law case. It would certainly be highly unlikely to be successful if you have minor children of the marriage or have any type of assets or financial debts to be specified in case or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your proceedings. It would absolutely be unwise in a case including domestic violence. Do it yourself would certainly likewise be difficult if you work or if you position any sort of value on your own time. Family law documents and procedures are designed by attorneys to puzzle you to make sure that you hire – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I don’t invest way too much time on the do it yourself danger. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that people who begin the divorce procedure with the intent to try to obtain a totally free divorce are going to  try DIY divorce whatever. For some reason, most likely economic, there is absolutely nothing I have actually had the ability to uncover to convince them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is typically false affordability. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up proceedings are much more challenging and expensive to deal with and complete. Don’t play this game. The system is designed by attorneys to puzzle you and require you to hire a divorce attorney. There are currently cost-efficient alternatives readily available– see below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

 

2. Avoid Traditional San Francisco 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 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 big retainers and billable hrs) would certainly be the only victors if they contested fairly unimportant problems in their divorce.

Best San Francisco, California Divorce Attorney San Francisco CountyStandard full representation by a local San Francisco divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all parts of your divorce litigation. It is highly likely to be a good professional service, however it is really expensive.

If you have a contested case, a complex case, a high-value case or a case that involves domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a San Francisco divorce attorney is NOT to be avoided. It is a requirement.

A contested case means that you and your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the case. A complex case consists of legal intricacies such as tax problems, current business problems, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous additional complex legal situations. A high-value case means 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 case.

If you believe that you have a contested,complicated or high-value case, you do. Hire an expert and high priced San Francisco 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 San Francisco divorce attorney. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a San Francisco divorce attorney becomes a threat to your economic position. Stay clear of it.

Naturally, if you call or email a conventional San Francisco divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not require their full representation service. In fact, they will try to frighten the crap out of you by sharing with you that you without a doubt are in need of their service and that your case will get screwed up without it.

That could possibly transpire– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll tell you next how to keep away from perhaps 90+% of the possible danger of getting your case screwed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T hire a conventional San Francisco divorce attorney on a complete representation basis.

Your case might likewise perhaps get screwed up if you DID hire a complete representation San Francisco divorce attorney. That’s likewise not probable, but it could take place.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a conventional full representation San Francisco divorce attorney to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be handled effectively, but you will overbuy unneeded services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to take place anymore. Your mothers and fathers had few other alternatives on their family law hiring choices. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have lots of valid alternatives to make your San Francisco uncontested divorce attorney hiring decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of San Francisco divorce attorneys. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the biggest danger you are confronted by in your hiring decision in terms of damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial market. And it is exceptionally dangerous to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills offer slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, costs lower than MOST attorneys, no legal guidance, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of San Francisco County divorce procedures, no local understanding about San Francisco County guidelines of court, local San Francisco County documents, local practices or the policies of specific local judges in the San Francisco region and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a completely unregulated Wild-West market widespread with all kinds of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, but what you get for that $300 cost is incredibly little– just prepared California divorce documents. Any other services delivered are all up-sold on the basis that once they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore money already invested? You are at their mercy and you are entirely vulnerable. And they know it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a good review of just a few of the more common scams and up-sells to be discovered in the online divorce market.

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over personnel, call center workers and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will perform any kind of analysis on your case to protect you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer support will be awful because it doesn’t have to be anything else. You will never ever be able to meet with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none of them lie in San Francisco and even in California

If you hire an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your family end up spending for their mistakes for several years, that is NOT a cheap 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 keep away from in your San Francisco divorce lawyer hiring choice.

Nevertheless, the possible harm 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 San Francisco divorce attorney 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, but not as badly as if you had employed a conventional full representation San Francisco family law attorney straight up.

Clearly, you don’t want to hire a conventional full representation San Francisco divorce attorney you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, but the essential factor here is that you don’t want to hire a conventional full representation San Francisco divorce attorney to manage your simple uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

Best San Francisco, California Divorce Attorney San Francisco CountyThe danger with hiring a San Francisco divorce attorney that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re working with a mediocre San Francisco divorce attorney– a drone who just stands in line with all other San Francisco divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to set apart himself or herself from the San Francisco lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the one-of-a-kind solution to your case. You don’t want that lawyer.

You could do with a San Francisco divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, distinct, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a San Francisco divorce lawyer to oversee your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even care for his or her own business interests strongly and decisively? You’re looking for a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the San Francisco lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

Nevertheless, you ought to not expect that such a San Francisco divorce lawyer is very effective or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are completely free for the lawyer to join, the lawyer must then begin to pay continuously increasing costs on a bid-basis, always contending versus other local San Francisco County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the top 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 costs, she’ll not get adequate cases to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top very few attorneys in each town taking almost all clients– based upon just how much marketing costs they can pay– not based upon how great they are or on how they have 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 skill of his or her service offerings.

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

The San Francisco divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always require a growing number of lower profit cases just to stay on top of sales costs. You don’t want that business-foolishness in someone you will rely on with your legal and economic 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 San Francisco Divorce Lawyer – Best San Francisco, California Divorce Attorney San Francisco County

So above are 4 factors to keep away from: do it yourself divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in simple uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and boring me-too drone attorneys who are actually bad at business.

So what do you actually search for in a San Francisco divorce attorney?

Best San Francisco, California Divorce Attorney San Francisco CountyBefore I inform you, I want to set the stage by giving you two remarkable data that I did not presume true when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to take full advantage of them in your San Francisco 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 San Francisco 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 San Francisco divorce attorney:

  1. Licensed local San Francisco divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
  2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this signifies that you just buy the legal services your case requires. You will usually 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 filed, identify problem concerns in your case and recommend the very best alternatives based upon legal guidance and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can tell they don’t know or don’t want you to know, just hang up. They don’t yet get it. Move on. Don’t educate 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 saves money and time, 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 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 San Francisco 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 San Francisco lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in San Francisco. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in San Francisco. Check here or complete the web form below to see if San Francisco 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 San Francisco:

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

 

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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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