How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in West Valley City Utah?  - Best West Valley City, Utah Divorce Attorney Salt Lake County

It’s a trick question. You do not need to identify the absolute best divorce lawyer in West Valley City, Utah There are many divorce attorneys in West Valley City that would do an equally excellent job for you. It would definitely be impossible to identify which one is the “very best.”

The correct issue for you, the West Valley City divorce consumer, is just how to identify just one of those West Valley City top divorce lawyers at the ideal standards of representation and price for the facts of your specific situation – while keeping away from every one of the usual, and occasionally dangerous, mistakes of the West Valley City divorce attorney hiring choice.

If you recognize what those mistakes are (I will inform you in this article) and if you have the right perspective, namely that you intend to make your West Valley City divorce attorney fit your case and not permit the lawyer to require your case to fit his or her inflexible practice profile, after that you increase substantially your chances of nailing the West Valley City divorce attorney hiring choice. Getting you through that decision efficiently is the intention of this article.

First, let’s mention the 4 traits to stay away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is conceivable, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire free family law forms from Utah’s judicial council or family court internet sites. Those free divorce forms will be blank, obviously. You can at that point attempt to complete and file the forms at your regional Salt Lake County divorce court on your own without expert aid. This is feasible – but very unlikely, really challenging, complex, discouraging and very slow.

Do it yourself divorce would be practically out of the question, and not smart even to attempt, in any  elaborate or contested family law matter. It would be very unlikely to be effective if you have minor children of the marriage or have any assets or debts to be listed in the event or have custody, visitation or assistance agreements in your case. It would absolutely be foolish in a matter entailing domestic physical violence. Do it yourself would likewise be hard if you have a job or if you put any kind of value on your own time. Family law forms and processeses are designed by lawyers to perplex you to ensure that you employ – an attorney.

Please excuse me if I do not invest way too much time on the do it yourself threat. 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 cost-free divorce are most likely to  attempt Do-It-Yourself divorce no matter what. For some reason, possibly financial, there is nothing I have actually been able to find to persuade them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is consistently false affordability. You WILL almost certainly screw it up, and screwed-up proceedings are a lot more difficult and very expensive to remedy and conclude. Don’t play this game. The system is designed by lawyers to perplex you and require you to hire a divorce attorney. There are currently cost-efficient choices offered– see below. Don’t go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

2. Avoid Traditional West Valley City 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 concerns, including the divorce itself. The parties do not need to be cheerful and they do not need to care for each other. They are either totally or mostly in agreement on all concerns and are smart enough to understand that traditional full-representation divorce lawyers (with huge retainers and billable hours) would be the only winners if they contested reasonably insignificant concerns in their divorce.

Conventional full representation by a neighborhood West Valley City divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce matter. It is very likely to be a very good professional service, however it is really expensive.

If you have a disputed matter, a complicated matter, a high-value matter or a matter that entails domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence, full representation by a West Valley City divorce attorney is NOT to be refrained from. It is a necessity.

A contested matter denotes that you and your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the matter. A complex matter has legal intricacies such as tax concerns, current business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of countless other intricate legal issues. A high-value case indicates that your marital estate is very 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 matter.

If you suspect that you have a disputed,complex or high-value matter, you do. Hire an experienced and expensive West Valley City 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 disputed, complex, high-value or domestic violence case, you do NOT need conventional full representation by a West Valley City divorce attorney. In fact, under those circumstances, full legal representation by a West Valley City divorce attorney ends up being a danger to your financial position. Avoid it.

Obviously, if you call or email a conventional West Valley City divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not need their full representation service. In fact, they will attempt to frighten the crap out of you by informing you that you completely are in need of their service and that your case will get screwed up without it.

That could happen– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll tell you next how to avoid perhaps 90+% of the potential threat of getting your case screwed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a conventional West Valley City divorce lawyer on a complete representation basis.

Your case could also perhaps get screwed up if you DID hire a complete representation West Valley City divorce lawyer. That’s also not probable, however it could take place.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY take place if you hire a conventional full representation West Valley City divorce lawyer to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed financially. Your case may be handled extremely well, however you will overbuy unnecessary services and you will overpay for them.

There’s no requirement for that to take place any longer. Your mothers and fathers had few other choices on their family law hiring decisions. Your grandparents had no other choices. You have numerous legitimate choices to make your West Valley City uncontested divorce attorney hiring decision based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of West Valley City divorce lawyers. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is without a doubt the most significant threat you deal with in your hiring decision in regards to damage to your future legal and financial safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a substantial industry. And it is very dangerous to your legal and financial future.

Online divorce mills use slick websites, wicked-cool divorce software, fees lower than MOST lawyers, no legal advice, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of Salt Lake County divorce policies, no local understanding about Salt Lake County rules of court, local Salt Lake County forms, local practices or the policies of specific local judges in the West Valley City area and no professional interest in you or your case. And all within a totally unregulated Wild-West industry rampant with all sort of incompetence, price scams, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill fees average about $300, however what you get for that $300 cost is extremely little– just prepared Utah divorce forms. Any other services provided are all up-sold on the basis that as soon as they’ve got you hooked, what are you going to do – ignore cash already invested? You are at their mercy and you are totally unprotected. And they realize it!

See the Online Divorce Association of America’s site for a good overview of just a few of the more typical scams and up-sells to be found in the online divorce industry.

If you employ an online divorce mill, you’ll always be contending with low-level, untrained, disinterested, high turn-over staff, call center staff members and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will perform any kind of analysis on your case to secure you and any minor children from future legal or financial damage. Customer assistance will be dreadful since it does not need 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 lie in West Valley City or perhaps in Utah

If you employ an online divorce mill thinking you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up paying for their errors for several years, that is NOT an inexpensive 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 West Valley City divorce lawyer hiring choice.

Nevertheless, the potential harm here is not significant– 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 employ a West Valley City divorce lawyer you found on a mass-lawyer finder platform, you’re going to overpay to some extent, depending on just how much the lawyer is paying the lawyer finder platform, however not as severely as if you had hired a conventional full representation West Valley City family law lawyer directly.

Certainly, you do not want to hire a conventional full representation West Valley City divorce lawyer you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, however the important factor here is that you do not want to hire a conventional full representation West Valley City divorce lawyer to handle your basic uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The threat with hiring a West Valley City divorce lawyer that you find ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re hiring an uninspired West Valley City divorce lawyer– a drone who just stands in line with all other West Valley City divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your trade however does nothing to differentiate himself or herself from the West Valley City lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to influence you that s/he is the one-of-a-kind resolution to your case. You do not want to have that lawyer.

You could do with a West Valley City divorce lawyer who is creative, vibrant, unique, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you employ a West Valley City divorce lawyer to look after your own legal and financial interests when s/he does not even take care of 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 West Valley City lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

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

Nevertheless, you ought to not consider that such a West Valley City divorce lawyer is really shrewd or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are cost-free for the lawyer to join, the lawyer will need to then start to pay continually increasing fees on a bid-basis, always competing against other local Salt Lake 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 fees, she’ll not get sufficient trade to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top really few lawyers in each town taking almost all the business– based on just how much marketing fees they can pay– not based on how great they are or on how they have actually configured their offerings to match 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 skill of his or her service offerings.

If that me-too divorce lawyer in West Valley City pays more to the mass-lawyer finder company and keeps paying more, s/he’ll get a featured position on the platform’s site and will get more clients, however his or her costs of getting cases will constantly rise while his or her fees are reasonably set by the flat demand for consumer law services such as divorce.

The West Valley City divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always need a growing number of lower profit cases just to keep up with business costs. You do not want that business-foolishness in someone you will rely on with your legal and financial future.

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

How to Find the Best West Valley City Divorce Lawyer – Best West Valley City, Utah Divorce Attorney Salt Lake County

So above are 4 factors to avoid: do it yourself divorce, traditional 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 seek in a West Valley City divorce lawyer?

Before I inform you, I want to set the stage by providing you two amazing statistics that I did not accept when I first saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to take full advantage of them in your West Valley City 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 Valley City 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 Valley City divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local West Valley City divorce attorney (not an unlicensed out-of-state online divorce mill);
2. Offers unbundled services in uncontested cases– this indicates that you just pay for the legal services your case 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 concerns in your case and suggest the best choices based upon legal advice and local understanding. If you call a lawyer and ask about unbundled services and you can tell they do not understand or do not want you to understand, just hang up. They do not yet get it. Move on. Don’t inform them.
3. Uses online divorce software that enables you to log into a client portal and enterall of the data in your case.  This not only saves time and money, but it actually 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 West Valley City 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 Valley City lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in West Valley City. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in West Valley City. Check here or complete the web form below to see if West Valley City 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 West Valley City:

Provo, Boise, North Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Boulder, Henderson, Fort Collins, Arvada, Lakewood, Westminster, Thornton, Denver, Aurora, Centennial, Billings, Colorado Springs, Reno, Pueblo, Albuquerque, Surprise, Peoria, Clovis, Glendale, Visalia, Scottsdale, Fresno