How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in San Mateo California?  - Best Affordable Divorce Attorney in San Mateo

It’s a trick question. You do not want to locate the most effective divorce lawyer or attorney in San Mateo, California There are a lot of divorce attorneys in San Mateo that would certainly do a just as good job for you. It would undoubtedly be inconceivable to decide which one is the “best.”

The legitimate issue for you, the San Mateo divorce consumer, is the way to choose one of those San Mateo best divorce lawyers at the perfect levels of representation and expense for the realities of your specific case – while staying clear of all of the usual, and sometimes unsafe, pitfalls of the San Mateo divorce attorney selection choice.

If you understand what those pitfalls are (I will certainly tell you in this post) and if you have the right perspective, specifically that you wish to make your San Mateo divorce attorney fit your case and not enable the lawyer to force your case to fit his or her stiff practice profile, then you increase substantially your opportunities of nailing the San Mateo divorce attorney employing choice. Getting you through that choice efficiently is the goal of this post.

To begin with, let’s note the 4 points to avoid:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is conceivable, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire free family law documents from California’s judicial council or family court web sites. Those free divorce documents will be uncompleted, of course. You can at that point attempt to finish and record the documents at your local San Mateo County divorce court on your own without professional help. This is possible – however very unlikely, extremely difficult, complex, discouraging and extremely time-consuming.

Do it yourself divorce would be essentially out of the question, and not sensible even to attempt, in any type of  complicated or contended family law case. It would be very unlikely to be successful if you have minor children of the marital relationship or have any type of assets or debts to be itemized in case or have custody, visitation or support agreements in your case. It would absolutely be unwise in a matter involving domestic violence. Do it yourself would additionally be challenging if you work or if you position any kind of value on your own time. Family law forms and processeses are made by lawyers to puzzle you to make sure that you work with – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I do not invest way too much time on the DIY danger. My experience on the front lines of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that folks that start the divorce process with the intent to attempt to get a free divorce are most likely to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce whatever. For one reason or another, possibly economic, there is absolutely nothing I have actually had the ability to uncover to convince them not to.

DIY in Family Law is consistently fake affordability. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and screwed-up cases are much more challenging and expensive to correct and complete. Do not play this game. The system is made by lawyers to puzzle you and force you to hire a divorce attorney. There are currently cost-efficient options available– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the participants will not be challenging any type of issues, including the divorce itself. The participants do not have to be happy and they do not have to care for each other. They are either completely or mostly in agreement on all issues and are sensible enough to understand that standard full-representation divorce lawyers (with big retainers and billable hours) would be the only victors if they contended reasonably insignificant issues in their divorce.

Conventional complete representation by a local San Mateo divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce case. It is very likely to be an excellent service, but it is expensive.

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

A contested case denotes that you and your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the case. A complex case has legal complexities such as tax issues, active business issues, a special needs child of the marital relationship or any one of many other complicated 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. Work with an expert and expensive San Mateo divorce attorney for complete traditional representation. Search for a certified Family Law specialist. You will certainly 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 San Mateo divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a San Mateo divorce attorney ends up being a threat to your economic position. Stay clear of it.

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

That could possibly occur– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll share with you next how to stay clear of perhaps 90+% of the potential danger of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a conventional San Mateo divorce lawyer on a complete representation basis.

Your case could also perhaps get messed up if you DID hire a complete representation San Mateo divorce lawyer. That’s also not likely, however it could take place.

However, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a conventional complete representation San Mateo divorce lawyer to manage your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be handled extremely well, however you will overbuy unnecessary services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no need for that to take place nowadays. Your parents had few other options on their family law employing choices. Your grandparents had no other options. You have many legitimate options to make your San Mateo uncontested divorce attorney employing choice based upon the nature and facts of your case, not upon the BMW payments of San Mateo divorce lawyers. Keep reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the most significant threat you face in your employing choice in terms of damage to your future legal and economic security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge market. And it is extremely unsafe to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills provide slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, costs lower than MOST lawyers, no legal guidance, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of principles, no malpractice insurance coverage, no understanding of San Mateo County divorce policies, no regional understanding about San Mateo County rules of court, regional San Mateo County forms, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the San Mateo region 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 costs average about $300, however what you get for that $300 charge is extremely little– just prepared California divorce documents. Any other services offered are all up-sold on the basis that as soon as they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – leave cash already invested? You are at their mercy and you are completely unguarded. And they recognize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a great review of merely a few of the more typical frauds and up-sells to be found in the online divorce market.

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll constantly be contending 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 kind of analysis on your case to secure you and any minor children from future legal or monetary damage. Customer support will be dreadful because it does not have to be anything else. You will never be able to meet with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none lie in San Mateo and even in California

If you work with an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up paying 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 directory sites like Avvo, FindLaw, LegalZoom, Justia, Google Screened, Google Business Profile (formerly GMB) and now even Yelp. This is the latest mistake to avoid in your San Mateo divorce lawyer employing choice.

However, the potential damage here is not big– nowhere near the damage done routinely 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 work with a San Mateo divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to pay too much to some extent, depending upon how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, however not as severely as if you had hired a conventional complete representation San Mateo family law lawyer directly.

Obviously, you do not wish to hire a conventional complete representation San Mateo divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would intensify your over-payment, however the essential aspect here is that you do not wish to hire a conventional complete representation San Mateo divorce lawyer to manage your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The danger with employing a San Mateo divorce lawyer that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a run-of-the-mill San Mateo divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other San Mateo divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your trade however does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the San Mateo lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the exceptional resolution to your case. You do not want that lawyer.

You want a San Mateo divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, distinct, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a San Mateo divorce lawyer to care for your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even look after his or 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 San Mateo lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

However, you ought to not think that such a San Mateo divorce lawyer is extremely effective 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 start to pay continuously increasing costs on a bid-basis, constantly contending versus other regional San Mateo County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the top 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 costs, she’ll not get adequate cases 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 advertising costs 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 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 San Mateo pays more to the mass-lawyer finder platform and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s site and will get more business, however his or her costs of acquiring cases will continuously increase while his or her costs are reasonably fixed by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The San Mateo divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will constantly need a growing number of lower profit cases just to keep up with sales costs. You do not want that business-foolishness in somebody you will trust with your legal and economic future.

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

How to Find the Best San Mateo Divorce Lawyer – Best Affordable Divorce Attorney in San Mateo

So above are 4 situations to keep clear of: DIY divorce, old-fashioned full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and boring me-too drone lawyers who are truly bad at business.

So what do you actually look out for in a San Mateo divorce lawyer?

Before I tell you, I wish to set the stage by providing you two amazing data that I did not presume true when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to maximize them in your San Mateo 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 San Mateo 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 Mateo divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local San Mateo divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this signifies that you only purchase the legal services your case actually requires. 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 filed, recognize problem issues in your case and recommend the best options based upon legal guidance and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask 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. Carry on. Do not 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 money and time, 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 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 Mateo 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 Mateo lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in San Mateo. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in San Mateo. Check here or complete the web form below to see if San Mateo has a 1-800-DIVORCE.

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