How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Stamford Connecticut?  - Stamford Divorce Lawyers - Local Family Law Firms in Stamford

It’s a trick question. You don’t want to find the most effective divorce lawyer or attorney in Stamford, Connecticut There are a lot of divorce attorneys in Stamford that will do an equally fine effort for you. It would undoubtedly be impossible to establish which one is the “best.”

The actual concern for you, the Stamford divorce client, is exactly how to locate one of those Stamford top-notch divorce attorneys at the proper standards of representation and also price for the realities of your particular case – while steering clear of all of the usual, and also occasionally harmful, mistakes of the Stamford divorce lawyer hiring choice.

If you know what those mistakes are (I will certainly advise you in this article) and also if you have the correct attitude, namely that you wish to make your Stamford divorce lawyer fit your instance and also not allow the attorney to require your instance to fit his or her stiff practice profile, after that you increase significantly your opportunities of nailing the Stamford divorce lawyer employing choice. Getting you through that decision efficiently is the objective of this post.

To start with, let’s note the 4 traits to stay away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is entirely possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download totally free family law forms from Connecticut’s judicial council or family court internet sites. Those totally free divorce forms are going to be blank, of course. You can then attempt to finish and also file the forms at your neighborhood Fairfield County divorce court by yourself without professional help. This is feasible – however very improbable, extremely difficult, complex, aggravating and also very slow.

Do it yourself divorce would be practically unattainable, and also not sensible even to attempt, in any kind of  complex or disputed family law case. It would be very improbable to be successful if you have minor children of the marriage or have any kind of property or debts to be specified in the case or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your proceedings. It would absolutely be ill-advised in a case entailing domestic violence. Do it yourself would likewise be difficult if you have a job or if you position any type of value on your own time. Family law forms and also processeses are made by attorneys to puzzle you to ensure that you work with – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I don’t invest excessive time on the DIY risk. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals that start the divorce process with the intent to attempt to obtain a free divorce are going to  attempt DIY divorce regardless of what. For one reason or another, probably economic, there is nothing I have actually had the ability to find to encourage them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is typically false saving. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and also screwed-up matters are a lot more troublesome and also expensive to deal with and also complete. Do not play this game. The system is made by attorneys to puzzle you and also require you to hire a divorce lawyer. There are now economical alternatives available– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is merely one in which the participants will not be contesting any kind of concerns, including the divorce itself. The participants don’t have to be cheerful and also they don’t have to like each other. They are either entirely or generally in agreement on all concerns and also are sensible enough to recognize that conventional full-representation divorce attorneys (with significant retainers and also billable hrs) would be the only winners if they disputed fairly insignificant concerns in their divorce.

Standard complete representation by a regional Stamford divorce lawyer is when that lawyer will represent you in all facets of your divorce litigation. It is very likely to be an excellent service, but it is high priced.

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

A disputed matter means that you and also your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter consists of legal complexities such as tax concerns, current business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of many other complicated legal scenarios. A high-value case means that your marital estate is large. There is no specific dollar limit. Certainly, if you have a high 7-figure net marital estate or greater, that is a high-value matter.

If you suspect that you have a contested,complicated or high-value matter, you do. Employ an expert and also high priced Stamford divorce lawyer for complete conventional representation. Seek 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 require conventional complete representation by a Stamford divorce lawyer. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a Stamford divorce lawyer becomes a danger to your economic position. Steer clear of it.

Naturally, if you call or email a traditional Stamford divorce lawyer, 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 without a doubt need their service which your case will get screwed up without it.

That could well come to pass– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll advise you next how to prevent perhaps 90+% of the prospective risk of getting your case screwed up if you don’t go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Stamford divorce attorney on a full representation basis.

Your case could also perhaps get screwed up if you DID hire a full representation Stamford divorce attorney. That’s also not probable, but it could take place.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a traditional complete representation Stamford divorce attorney to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be handled effectively, but you will overbuy unneeded services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no need for that to take place nowadays. Your parents had few other alternatives on their family law employing choices. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have numerous valid alternatives to make your Stamford uncontested divorce lawyer employing decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Stamford divorce attorneys. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the greatest threat you encounter in your employing decision in terms of damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a big industry. And it is very harmful to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills provide slick sites, wicked-cool divorce computer software, costs lower than MOST attorneys, no legal recommendations, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance coverage, no understanding of Fairfield County divorce procedures, no regional understanding about Fairfield County guidelines of court, regional Fairfield County forms, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the Stamford region and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a totally uncontrolled Wild-West industry widespread with all sort of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill costs average about $300, but what you get for that $300 fee is remarkably little– just prepared Connecticut divorce forms. Any other services offered are all up-sold on the basis that when they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – walk away from cash already invested? You are at their whim and you are entirely vulnerable. And they realize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a very good overview of merely a few of the more common frauds and up-sells to be discovered in the online divorce industry.

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, inexperienced, indifferent, high turn-over personnel, call center employees and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. No one will perform any kind of analysis on your case to safeguard you and any minor children from future legal or financial damage. Client support will be dreadful due to the fact that it does not have to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to consult with anybody at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none of them are located in Stamford and even in Connecticut

If you work with an online divorce mill thinking you will conserve yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up spending for their mistakes 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 risk to stay away from in your Stamford divorce lawyer employing choice.

Nevertheless, the prospective damage here is not massive– nowhere near the damage done consistently 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 work with a Stamford divorce attorney you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to pay too much to some extent, depending on just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as severely as if you had employed a traditional complete representation Stamford family law attorney directly.

Undoubtedly, you don’t wish to hire a traditional complete representation Stamford divorce attorney you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the crucial aspect here is that you don’t wish to hire a traditional complete representation Stamford divorce attorney to handle your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The risk with employing a Stamford divorce attorney that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a below average Stamford divorce attorney– a drone who just stands in line with all other Stamford divorce attorneys and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to distinguish himself or herself from the Stamford lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to persuade you that s/he is the standout resolution to your case. You don’t wish to have that lawyer.

You could do with a Stamford divorce lawyer who is imaginative, bold, unique, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a Stamford divorce lawyer to take care of your own legal and economic interests when s/he does not even take care of his or her own law practice interests aggressively and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Stamford lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by joining Avvo and doing nothing else.

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

Nevertheless, you need to not expect that such a Stamford divorce lawyer is extremely good or business-savvy either. The issue is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of charge for the lawyer to enroll in, the lawyer needs to then start to pay continually increasing costs on a bid-basis, always contending against other regional Fairfield County divorce attorneys, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer does not pay extra, 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 enough clients to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top extremely few attorneys in each town taking almost all the business– based on just how much advertising costs they can pay– not based on how great they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to fit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your trade 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 Stamford 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 sales, but his or her expenses of getting cases will constantly rise while his or her costs are fairly fixed by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Stamford divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play scheme will always require increasingly more lower profit cases just to stay on top of sales expenses. You don’t desire that business-foolishness in someone you will rely on with your legal and economic future.

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

How to Find the Best Stamford Divorce Lawyer – Stamford Divorce Lawyers - Local Family Law Firms in Stamford

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

So what do you actually look for in a Stamford divorce attorney?

Before I advise you, I wish to set the stage by offering you 2 remarkable statistics that I did not believe when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you need to maximize them in your Stamford 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 Stamford 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 Stamford divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Stamford divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this means that you only purchase the legal services your case needs. You will normally 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 submitted to court, recognize problem issues in your case and recommend the best alternatives based upon legal recommendations and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can determine they don’t understand or don’t desire you to understand, just hang up. They don’t yet get it. Move on. Do not 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 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 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 Stamford 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 Stamford lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Stamford. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Stamford. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Stamford 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 Stamford:

Bridgeport, Yonkers, New York City, Paterson, Jersey City, New Haven, Newark, Waterbury, Elizabeth, Edison, Hartford, Allentown, Philadelphia, Providence, Worcester, Cambridge, Boston, Lowell, Manchester, Syracuse, Baltimore, Washington, D. C., Alexandria, Buffalo, Hampton, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Pittsburgh