How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in West Palm Beach Florida?  - West Palm Beach Divorce Lawyer | Divorce Attorney West Palm Beach

It’s a trick question. You do not want to find the very best divorce lawyer in West Palm Beach, Florida There are numerous divorce attorneys in West Palm Beach who would certainly do a just as very good job for you. It would be impossible to figure out which one is the “very best.”

The real concern for you, the West Palm Beach divorce consumer, is how to choose one of those West Palm Beach top divorce lawyers at the precise standards of assistance and expense for the facts of your certain scenario – while staying away from all of the usual, and occasionally dangerous, challenges of the West Palm Beach divorce attorney selection choice.

If you know what those challenges are (I will certainly tell you in this article) and if you have the proper attitude, specifically that you wish to make your West Palm Beach divorce attorney fit your situation and not permit the lawyer to compel your situation to fit his/her inflexible practice profile, then you enhance considerably your opportunities of nailing the West Palm Beach divorce attorney employing choice. Getting you through that choice efficiently is the goal of this blog post.

To start with, let’s itemize the 4 points to stay clear of:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to download cost-free family law documents from Florida’s judicial council or family court sites. Those cost-free divorce documents will be blank, obviously. You can then attempt to complete and submit the documents at your neighborhood Palm Beach County divorce court on your own without professional aid. This is possible – however very improbable, really challenging, complex, irritating and incredibly time-consuming.

Do it yourself divorce would certainly be practically unachievable, and not wise even to try, in any  complicated or disputed family law matter. It would certainly be very improbable to be successful if you have minor children of the marriage or have any property or debts to be specified in the event or have custody, visitation or assistance settlements in your matter. It would definitely be risky in a matter entailing domestic violence. Do it yourself would certainly additionally be challenging if you work or if you place any sort of worth on your own time. Family law documents and processeses are designed by lawyers to puzzle you to make sure that you work with – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not spend way too much time on the DIY risk. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that folks who start the divorce procedure with the intent to attempt to obtain a totally free divorce are most likely to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce regardless of what. For one reason or another, probably financial, there is absolutely nothing I have actually been able to discover to persuade them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is always fake economy. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up matters are a lot more perplexing and costly to remedy and conclude. Do not play this game. The system is designed by lawyers to puzzle you and compel you to employ a divorce attorney. There are now cost-efficient options offered– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is just one in which the litigants will not be disputing any problems, including the divorce itself. The litigants do not have to be happy and they do not have to care for each other. They are either totally or mainly in agreement on all problems and are wise enough to recognize that conventional full-representation divorce lawyers (with huge retainers and billable hrs) would certainly be the only victors if they disputed fairly unimportant problems in their divorce.

Conventional complete representation by a regional West Palm Beach divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce litigation. It is very likely to be an excellent service, but it is way over-priced.

If you have a disputed matter, a complicated matter, a high-value matter or a matter that involves domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, complete representation by a West Palm Beach divorce attorney is NOT to be evaded. It is a necessity.

A contested matter means that you and your spouse/partner are contesting ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter consists of legal complexities such as tax problems, current business problems, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous other complex legal situations. A high-value case indicates that your marital estate is large. There is no specific 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 disputed,complex or high-value matter, you do. Employ an expert and expensive West Palm Beach 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 disputed, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT need traditional complete representation by a West Palm Beach divorce attorney. In fact, under those conditions, complete legal representation by a West Palm Beach divorce attorney ends up being a threat to your financial position. Steer clear of it.

Of course, if you call or email a conventional West Palm Beach divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their complete representation service. In fact, they will attempt to terrify the crap out of you by advising you that you positively need their service and that your case will get messed up without it.

That could transpire– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll inform you next how to stay away from potentially 90+% of the prospective risk of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T employ a conventional West Palm Beach divorce lawyer on a full representation basis.

Your case could likewise potentially get messed up if you DID employ a full representation West Palm Beach divorce lawyer. That’s likewise not likely, but it could happen.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY happen if you employ a conventional complete representation West Palm Beach divorce lawyer to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be handled effectively, but you will overbuy needless services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no requirement for that to happen nowadays. Your mothers and fathers had few other options on their family law employing options. Your grandparents had no other options. You have numerous legitimate options to make your West Palm Beach uncontested divorce attorney employing choice based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of West Palm Beach divorce lawyers. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the greatest risk you encounter in your employing choice in regards to damage to your future legal and financial security. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial market. And it is incredibly dangerous to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills use slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, fees lower than MOST lawyers, no legal recommendations, no legal knowledge, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance, no knowledge of Palm Beach County divorce policies, no regional knowledge about Palm Beach County guidelines of court, regional Palm Beach County documents, regional practices or the policies of individual regional judges in the West Palm Beach region and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within an entirely unregulated Wild-West market widespread with all sort of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill fees average about $300, but what you get for that $300 charge is incredibly little– just prepared Florida divorce documents. Any other services delivered are all up-sold on the basis that as soon as they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore money already spent? You are at their whim and you are totally unguarded. And they realize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a very good review of merely some of the more common frauds and up-sells to be experienced in the online divorce market.

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, untrained, disinterested, 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 financial damage. Customer assistance will be horrible due to the fact that it does not have to be anything else. You will never ever have the ability to meet anyone at an online divorce mill as it is very likely that none are located in West Palm Beach and even in Florida

If you work with an online divorce mill thinking you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your family end up paying for their mistakes for 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 latest pitfall to stay clear of in your West Palm Beach divorce lawyer employing choice.

Nevertheless, the prospective harm here is not big– nowhere near the damage done consistently 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 work with a West Palm Beach divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending upon just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, but not as severely as if you had actually hired a conventional complete representation West Palm Beach family law lawyer directly.

Undoubtedly, you do not wish to employ a conventional complete representation West Palm Beach divorce lawyer you find on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, but the important element here is that you do not wish to employ a conventional complete representation West Palm Beach divorce lawyer to handle your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you find that lawyer!!

The risk with employing a West Palm Beach divorce lawyer that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring a below average West Palm Beach divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other West Palm Beach divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business but does nothing to set apart himself or herself from the West Palm Beach lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the exceptional resolution to your case. You do not want to have that lawyer.

You could do with a West Palm Beach divorce lawyer who is creative, vibrant, unique, stylish and business-savvy. In fact, why would you work with a West Palm Beach divorce lawyer to oversee your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even look after his/her own business interests strongly and decisively? You’re trying to find a divorce lawyer who purposefully sets himself or herself apart from the West Palm Beach lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and not doing anything else.

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

Nevertheless, you should not believe that such a West Palm Beach divorce lawyer is really good or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are totally free for the lawyer to register with, the lawyer must then start to pay continuously increasing fees on a bid-basis, always contending versus other regional Palm Beach County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the leading 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/her fees, she’ll not get sufficient clients to stay in business.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the leading really few lawyers in each town taking almost all cases– based on just how much advertising fees they can pay– not based on how excellent they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to match your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your trade is the amount of money s/he is prepared to pay to get it, not the quality and skill of his/her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in West Palm Beach 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/her costs of doing business will continuously rise while his/her fees are fairly set by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The West Palm Beach divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always need increasingly more lower revenue cases just to stay on top of business costs. You do not want that business-foolishness in somebody 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 utilized to screw his/her own business into the ground.

How to Find the Best West Palm Beach Divorce Lawyer – West Palm Beach Divorce Lawyer | Divorce Attorney West Palm Beach

So above are 4 concerns to steer clear of: DIY divorce, conventional full-service lawyer representation in basic uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and uninspiring me-too drone lawyers who are really bad at business.

So what do you actually search for in a West Palm Beach divorce lawyer?

Before I tell you, I wish to set the stage by giving you two exceptional stats that I did not believe when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to make the most of them in your West Palm Beach 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 West Palm Beach 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 West Palm Beach divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local West Palm Beach divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this suggests that you just purchase the legal services your case actually requires. You will typically 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 submitted to court, identify problem concerns in your case and suggest the very best options based upon legal recommendations and regional knowledge. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can see that they do not know or do not want you to know, just hang up. They do not yet get it. Carry on. Do not inform them.
3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and enterall of the personal data 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 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 West Palm Beach 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 West Palm Beach lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in West Palm Beach. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in West Palm Beach. Check here or complete the web form below to see if West Palm Beach has a 1-800-DIVORCE.

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