How to Find the Best Divorce Lawyer in Yonkers New York?  - Yonkers Divorce Attorney

It’s a trick question. You do not need to get the very best divorce attorney in Yonkers, New York There are lots of divorce lawyers in Yonkers who would certainly do a just as good undertaking for you. It would be inconceivable to ascertain which one is the “absolute best.”

The correct issue for you, the Yonkers divorce buyer, is how to choose one of those Yonkers best divorce lawyers at the proper standards of representation and price for the aspects of your individual scenario – while avoiding every one of the typical, and sometimes dangerous, pitfalls of the Yonkers divorce attorney selection choice.

If you understand what those pitfalls are (I will certainly tell you in this blog post) and if you have the right attitude, namely that you intend to make your Yonkers divorce attorney fit your case and not allow the attorney to require your case to fit his or her rigid practice profile, after that you enhance substantially your opportunities of nailing the Yonkers divorce attorney hiring choice. Getting you through that choice efficiently is the goal of this blog post.

To start with, let’s mention the 4 factors to stay away from:

1. Avoid Do-It-Yourself Divorce:

It is possible, repeat POSSIBLE, to acquire free family law documents from New York’s judicial council or family court websites. Those free divorce documents will be blank, of course. You can then try to finish and file the documents at your neighborhood Westchester County divorce court by yourself without professional help. This is feasible – but extremely improbable, very challenging, confusing, frustrating and exceptionally time-consuming.

Do it yourself divorce would be practically impossible, and not sensible even to attempt, in any kind of  complicated or contested family law action. It would be extremely improbable to be successful if you have minor children of the marriage or have any kind of assets or debts to be detailed in the case or have custody, visitation or support arrangements in your case. It would definitely be foolish in a case entailing domestic physical violence. Do it yourself would additionally be challenging if you have a job or if you place any sort of value on your own time. Family law documents and processeses are developed by lawyers to confuse you so that you hire – a lawyer.

Please excuse me if I do not invest too much time on the do it yourself risk. My experience on the cutting edge of California divorce for the past 40+ years is that individuals who start the divorce process with the intent to try to get a free divorce are most likely to  try Do-It-Yourself divorce no matter what. For one reason or another, most likely economic, there is nothing I have actually had the ability to uncover to encourage them not to.

Do It Yourself in Family Law is typically fake economy. You WILL probably screw it up, and screwed-up proceedings are a lot more perplexing and very expensive to correct and finalize. Do not play this game. The system is developed by lawyers to confuse you and require you to hire a divorce attorney. There are now cost-effective alternatives available– see listed below. Do not go it alone in Divorce or Family Law.

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

An uncontested divorce is just one in which the litigants will not be challenging any kind of concerns, including the divorce itself. The litigants do not need to be pleased and they do not need to like each other. They are either completely or mainly in agreement on all concerns and are sensible enough to acknowledge that standard full-representation divorce lawyers (with big retainers and billable hours) would be the only winners if they contested fairly unimportant concerns in their divorce.

Traditional complete representation by a regional Yonkers divorce attorney is when that attorney will represent you in all facets of your divorce matter. It is extremely likely to be an excellent professional service, yet it is very costly.

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, complete representation by a Yonkers divorce attorney is NOT to be avoided. It is a requirement.

A contested case indicates that you and your spouse/partner are disputing ANY issue in the case. A complicated case contains legal intricacies such as tax concerns, active business concerns, a special needs child of the marriage or any one of numerous additional complex legal issues. A high-value case indicates that your marital estate is huge. There is no particular dollar limit. Certainly, 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 expensive Yonkers 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 require traditional complete representation by a Yonkers divorce attorney. In fact, under those circumstances, complete legal representation by a Yonkers divorce attorney becomes a threat to your economic position. Avoid it.

Obviously, if you call or email a traditional Yonkers divorce attorney, they will not tell you that you do not require their complete representation service. In fact, they will try to terrify the crap out of you by advising you that you completely require their service which your case will get messed up without it.

That could occur– even in a non-DIY case. I’ll advise you next how to steer clear of possibly 90+% of the prospective risk of getting your case messed up if you do not go DIY and you DON’T hire a traditional Yonkers divorce attorney on a complete representation basis.

Your case could likewise possibly get messed up if you DID hire a complete representation Yonkers divorce attorney. That’s likewise not probable, however it could happen.

Nevertheless, what will DEFINITELY happen if you hire a traditional complete representation Yonkers divorce attorney to handle your uncontested divorce or family law case is that you will get screwed economically. Your case might be handled effectively, however you will overbuy excessive services and you will pay too much for them.

There’s no requirement for that to happen nowadays. Your parents had few other alternatives on their family law hiring options. Your grandparents had no other alternatives. You have lots of legitimate alternatives to make your Yonkers uncontested divorce attorney hiring choice based upon the nature and truths of your case, not upon the BMW payments of Yonkers divorce lawyers. Continue reading.

3. Avoid Unqualified Unregulated Online Divorce Mills:

This is by far the most significant risk you face in your hiring choice in terms of damage to your future legal and economic safety. Non-lawyer online divorce is a huge market. And it is exceptionally dangerous to your legal and economic future.

Online divorce mills use slick sites, wicked-cool divorce software applications, fees lower than MOST lawyers, no legal guidance, no legal understanding, no professional licensing, no legal education, no code of ethics, no malpractice insurance, no understanding of Westchester County divorce policies, no regional understanding about Westchester County guidelines of court, regional Westchester County documents, regional practices or the policies of specific regional judges in the Yonkers area and no expert interest in you or your case. And all within a completely unregulated Wild-West market rampant with all sort of incompetence, price fraud, and up-selling.

Online divorce mill fees average about $300, however what you get for that $300 cost is extremely little– just prepared New York divorce documents. 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 money already spent? You are at their mercy and you are completely unprotected. And they know it!

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

If you choose an online divorce mill, you’ll always be dealing with low-level, untrained, indifferent, high turn-over staff, call center workers and folks in India, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Mexico or some other state. Nobody will carry out any type of analysis on your case to safeguard you and any minor children from future legal or financial damage. Client support will be awful since it doesn’t need to be anything else. You will never have the ability to meet with anyone at an online divorce mill as it is highly likely that none of them are located in Yonkers or even in New York

If you hire an online divorce mill thinking you will save yourself a few dollars and you and your household end up paying for their mistakes for many years, that is NOT a cheap 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 pitfall to stay away from in your Yonkers divorce lawyer hiring choice.

Nevertheless, the prospective harm here is not huge– nowhere near the damage done routinely by non-lawyer online divorce mills or indeed the damage likely to be done by you to your own case with DIY divorce.

If you hire a Yonkers 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, however not as terribly as if you had hired a traditional complete representation Yonkers family law attorney directly.

Obviously, you do not wish to hire a traditional complete representation Yonkers divorce attorney you discover on a mass-lawyer platform. That would compound your over-payment, however the important aspect here is that you do not wish to hire a traditional complete representation Yonkers divorce attorney to handle your easy uncontested divorce, no matter where you discover that lawyer!!

The risk with hiring a Yonkers divorce attorney that you stumble on ONLY on a mass-lawyer platform is that you’re employing a second-rate Yonkers divorce attorney– a drone who just stands in line with all other Yonkers divorce lawyers and HOPES that s/he will get your business however does nothing to set apart himself or herself from the Yonkers lawyer-crowd. That lawyer does nothing to convince you that s/he is the standout resolution to your case. You do not wish to have that lawyer.

You want a Yonkers divorce lawyer who is creative, bold, distinct, classy and business-savvy. In fact, why would you hire a Yonkers 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 searching for a divorce lawyer who intentionally sets himself or herself apart from the Yonkers lawyer-crowd and does NOT blend in by signing up with Avvo and doing nothing else.

Mass-lawyer finder platforms like Avvo are free of cost to sign up with, which is why every divorce lawyer in Westchester County will have signed up. So you need to not disqualify a Yonkers divorce lawyer only because s/he has an Avvo account.

Nevertheless, you need to not believe that such a Yonkers divorce lawyer is very shrewd or business-savvy either. The problem is that while these mass-lawyer platforms are free of cost for the lawyer to join, the lawyer needs to then start to pay continuously increasing fees on a bid-basis, always battling against other regional Westchester County divorce lawyers, to be seen on the top page of the platform’s site. If that lawyer doesn’t 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 doesn’t keep bidding up his or her fees, she’ll not get sufficient clients to keep up.

It’s a winner-take-all system with the top very few lawyers in each town taking almost all cases– based upon just how much marketing fees they can pay– not based upon how great they are or on how they have configured their offerings to fit your case. The barrier to that me-too lawyer getting your case is the amount 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 Yonkers 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, however his or her expenses of acquiring cases will constantly rise while his or her fees are fairly fixed by the flat need for consumer law services such as divorce.

The Yonkers divorce lawyer who plays the Avvo pay-to-play game will always require more and more lower revenue cases just to keep up with sales expenses. You do not desire that business-foolishness in someone you will trust with your legal and economic future.

And yes, that lawyer is going to utilize the very 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 Yonkers Divorce Lawyer – Yonkers Divorce Attorney

So above are 4 problems to stay away from: do it yourself divorce, traditional full-service lawyer representation in easy uncontested cases, unlicensed and unregulated online divorce mills and uninspiring me-too drone lawyers who are actually bad at the business of law practice.

So what do you in fact search for in a Yonkers divorce attorney?

Before I tell you, I wish to set the stage by offering you two impressive statistics that I did not believe when I initially saw them. These are game-changers in the legal profession and you really need to maximize them in your Yonkers 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 Yonkers 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 Yonkers divorce attorney:

1. Licensed local Yonkers 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 actually requires. You will normally do your own filing of docs at court and schedule the service of filed docs on your spouse/partner. The divorce lawyer will examine your docs before they are filed, determine problem issues in your case and recommend the best alternatives based upon legal guidance and regional understanding. If you call a lawyer and inquire about unbundled services and you can determine they do not understand or do not desire you to understand, just hang up. They do not yet get it. Move on. Do not educate them.
3. Uses online divorce software that allows you to log into a client portal and inputall of the 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 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 Yonkers 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 Yonkers lawyer-crowd. You’re looking for someone with style who stands out, not melds in. 1-800-DIVORCE is exclusive in Yonkers. There is only one 1-800-DIVORCE lawyer in Yonkers. Check here or complete the web form below to see if Yonkers 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 Yonkers:

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