Category: Legal

How to Find a Good Family Law Attorney

Family-law attorneys deal with cases involving marriage, divorce, child support, adoption, and guardianship. Family-law is a branch of civil law completely separate from the criminal justice system. If you need a pre-nuptial agreement, want to file for divorce, or are considering adopting a child, you can benefit from hiring a good family-law attorney. Attorneys may be a dime a dozen, but not all are created equal.

You may want to hire a lawyer if you have a legal problem and do not know how to solve it. There are several ways to find a lawyer who is right for you:

Certified lawyer referral services or your local bar association

You can contact your county’s lawyer referral serviceExternal link icon or call your local county bar association (which will have a lawyer referral service or other resource) help you find a lawyer.

Legal aid agencies

If you cannot afford a lawyer, you may be able to get free or low-cost legal help in non-criminal cases from a legal services program. This will depend on your income and the nature of your legal problem.

You can also check the white pages of your phone book to look for a legal aid organization located near you. If you look in the phone book or other directories, be careful because some businesses will call themselves “legal aid” when they are not.

Certified legal specialist directory

For some types of cases, you may need a very experienced attorney in a particular area of law. The State Bar keeps a list of attorneys who are certified specialists in particular areas of law. Attorneys may advertise as certified specialists only if they are certified directly by the State Bar of California or an organization accredited by the State Bar to certify such attorneys

Paralegals or legal document assistants

Paralegals, or legal document assistants, are a good resource for preparing the many forms needed in a family law case and other types of cases. BUT they have not been to law school. They are NOT qualified to give you legal advice and, by law, are NOT allowed to give you legal advice. They can only do what you tell them to do. They are not trained to spot potential problems.

Recommendations

Ask your friends, co-workers, and employers if they know any lawyers who have experience with the type of problem you have. If you know any lawyers who practice in other areas of law, ask them if they have any recommendations for lawyers in the area that you need help with. Business people or professionals like bankers, ministers, doctors, social workers, and teachers are also good sources of referrals.

Dealing with family law issues?

Family law generally concerns domestic relations and family-related matters such as marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, adoptions, paternity, guardianships, domestic abuse, surrogacy, child custody, child abduction, the dissolution of marriage and associated issues. Each state has its own set of family laws, and traveling across state borders can sometimes affect your rights and those of your family.

Contrary to popular belief, seeking the advice of a family law attorney does not necessarily mean that something is amiss in your family. A family law attorney can help negotiate prenuptial/premarital agreements for clients in anticipation of marriage or advise same-sex couples on relevant legal issues affecting their relationship. They also can help with adoption proceedings and other procedures involving children.

Family law attorneys often do represent clients seeking a divorce, annulment or legal separation, and the complicated issues that can arise as a result. Although domestic abuse is a criminal offense, some family law attorneys are skilled at handling these situations, as they are often entangled with other family law issues.

Some jurisdictions certify lawyers as family law specialists, which means these attorneys have met the certifying body’s minimum requirements for education, experience, and examination.

Family Law Lawyers That Can Help

The area of family law is composed of the legal relationships between family members. These relationships can include those of parents, children, spouses, domestic partners, and guardians. Issues involving family law can include: marriage, divorce, child custody, child support, adoption, reproductive rights, paternity, and domestic violence.

Family law encompasses the rules, regulations, and court procedures that involve the family unit. As such, it is not uncommon for cases that are heard in family court to be very personal and emotional. Family law attorneys help their clients file for divorce or separation, child custody and visitation, child support, and alimony. Experienced lawyers also assist their clients in establishing paternity, obtaining domestic violence restraining orders, property division, debt allocation, and parenting plans.

Avoiding Bad Attorneys

Do not hire an attorney who has solicited you.

It is against the Legal Rules of Professional Conduct for an attorney to contact you if you have not already expressed interest in his/her services or given him/her permission to contact you.

Make sure the attorney gives you time to make a decision.

Attorneys are forbidden to pressure you into any fee arrangement or other agreement. They should give you time to consider any arrangement you make. If you feel like you’re being pressured, find another attorney.

Ask for the attorney’s background and credentials.

These should be given without hesitation. If the attorney seems unwilling or hesitant to give you this information, look elsewhere.

• Verify your lawyer’s background and credentials with the local or state bar association. The American Bar Association has a directory of state and local bar associations. You can call to verify the information your attorney has given you; in some cases it may even be available online.

• You can also check whether s/he has any ethics violations or disciplinary actions on his or her record. If the attorney has been disciplined multiple times or has been suspended, you should hire someone else.

Avoid hiring an attorney who suggests anything unethical.

Attorneys are bound by very strict codes of ethics and professional conduct. Never hire an attorney who encourages you to do anything illegal or unethical. For example, an attorney who suggests that you lie about your income in a child custody case should be rejected. [28] Never hire attorneys who make unethical offers.

• You should avoid attorneys who make specific promises about the results of your case. A “guaranteed result” is impossible, and it’s unethical for an attorney to promise you that s/he will get you “the result you want” if you hire him or her.

• Attorneys are required to fully and competently represent you if they accept you as a client. They cannot shape the quality of their representation depending on how much you pay, and they cannot promise different results if you pay more. For example, if a divorce attorney tells you that your case will have a greater chance of success if you pay for his/her “platinum” package vs the “basic” package, do not hire that attorney. This behavior is unethical.

Determine whether you need a family-law attorney.

Step in finding the right attorney is realizing that you need one. You also need to know which specialization your situation calls for. If any of the following apply to you, you would benefit from hiring a family-law attorney:

• You are considering a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement before getting married
• You are considering divorce, annulment, or legal separation
• You need to modify a divorce agreement
• You need guidance on child custody and support
• You are considering adoption
• You need help with a restraining order

Determine the venue.

Normally you will bring a legal case in the county where both parties live or in the county in which the opposing party lives. For example, if you are filing for divorce, you would want to file in the county where you or your spouse live. Most of the time legal cases will be handled by the county in which the plaintiff (the person filing the claim) lives.

• There are exceptions to this policy, such as when the individual is in the military or resides in more than one state.

Do some research.

Some simple online research can serve as a background check of sorts and provide a wealth of information about some of the attorneys on your list. Others may be difficult to locate online. Some things to look for include:

• Websites. Most attorneys will have at least a basic website that lists their practice areas and contact information. Others will have websites with detailed information about their specializations, experience, and qualifications.

• Social media profiles. Run a quick search on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn for each of the attorneys or law firms on your list. Social media profiles and status updates can provide information about a person or business.

• News stories and press releases. These can be great sources of information about individual attorneys and law firms. However, when reading press releases, take them for what they are: public relations stories about the attorney or law firm who wrote them.

Family Lawyer’s Tips for a Good Divorce

Even if the divorce was an amicable one, you should always at least consult with a divorce lawyer before filing your paperwork.

The term, “a good divorce” may seem oxymoronic. However, if you and your spouse have made the difficult decision to end your relationship, you can either spend a lot of time arguing and getting nowhere or split as quickly, amicably, and painlessly as possible.

Don’t Surprise Your Spouse

There are some situations such as those involving domestic abuse in which you may have to file for divorce without letting your spouse know. If it is at all possible, you should make your spouse aware of your intention to divorce them. It is not usually a good idea to surprise them by serving them with papers.

Do Not Rush Into a Settlement

When a person wants to end a marriage, it is natural for them to want to get it over with very quickly. It may be tempting to let your spouse keep whatever they want just to get the divorce over with. However, in the long run, you will want to be able to retain the property and money to which you are entitled. Your spouse should also have to retain their fair share of the bills

Do Not Date Until the Divorce is Final

There is a minimum six month waiting period from the time you file for divorce to the time the marriage is actually dissolved. It is customary for people to live apart during this time.

Finding a Good Attorney

Even if the divorce was an amicable one, you should always at least consult with a divorce lawyer before filing your paperwork. You and your spouse can hire an attorney together to help you with the paperwork and the division of property. They can also help you make a custody arrangement that is acceptable to the courts.

ways to make your divorce as painless as possible, according to a top divorce attorney

a managing partner at a top divorce law firm, about how to make divorce proceedings as painless as possible. Here are her four pieces of advice.

Explore alternatives to litigation

Instead of jumping into litigation right away, Newman recommends alternative options for settling a divorce out of court. In litigation, “you draft motion papers and you basically have to show why your other spouse is a terrible person,” she said. “That doesn’t bode well for any future parenting relationship, not to mention litigation is slow and very expensive.”

Mediation, one alternative, involves working with a neutral mediator. Each spouse can have an attorney of their own, but they’re less involved in the process. Mediators can also be used to settle specific issues within divorce proceedings, such as child custody.

“I tell clients if they come to me and have already settled custody, you just saved yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and therapy bills,”

Another option is collaborative law, where the couple agrees not to go to court and works with collaboratively trained attorneys. It’s also more interdisciplinary, involving divorce coaches and child specialists if applicable. The catch is that if either party says they don’t want to continue the process anymore, they can’t use those same attorneys in litigation.

Your Divorce Lawyer Is Not Your Therapist

Divorce affects every aspect of a person’s life. For many divorcing couples, the same income that once supported one household may now have to stretch to support two. For couples who are also parents, there may be the additional worry about the effect a divorce will have on their children. The responsibilities of parenting also change as parents go from sharing the work and joys of parenting with a spouse, to alternating between being a single parent and being newly-single when the children are with the other parent.

Strategize. A good lawyer should help you identify the outcome you hope to achieve in the divorce but must also advise you as to whether that outcome is realistic under the facts of your case and the law in your jurisdiction. Your lawyer should gather all the necessary information to understand your case, spot any potential legal issues, and identify the strengths and weaknesses.

Litigate. If you don’t achieve a settlement in advance of litigation, your lawyer will need to timely file all the necessary pleadings in court. Your lawyer may need to file discovery requests or take depositions so that the facts necessary to prove your case are made a part of the record in the event you have to go to trial. If you have minor children, additional pleadings related to child support and custody and visitation are required, and will require the approval of your presiding judge, even if you and your spouse have agreed to the terms. And if you go to trial, your lawyer should have the trial practice skills necessary to maximize your chances of a successful verdict, including preserving the record for appeal, should you need it.

What your lawyer should not do for you

If you think the above list of skills your lawyer needs to possess is a long one, you’re not wrong. But there is also a long list of things your lawyer can’t, or shouldn’t, do for you. There are services you may need as you navigate the divorce that your lawyer is simply not well-suited to offer you. Although some lawyers are drawn to the profession because of a desire to help people through legal and personal problems, your lawyer is not your therapist.

Be your friend.Your lawyer needs the detachment of a professional relationship, not a personal one, to represent you effectively.The potential legal issues for which your divorce lawyer is responsible are substantial. Your lawyer’s ability to manage those issues effectively requires a detached, objective, professional relationship. While the subject matter of divorce litigation necessarily involves an understanding of your personal relationships, the relationship you have with your attorney should not itself be too personal.

A DIVORCE ATTORNEY

A good divorce lawyer will help you end the bad marriage with a good divorce – one that will help you and your family begin a new and better day.

People are usually sad, afraid, and angry when this journey begins. That’s why watching our clients become independent, strong, and happy people at the end of the divorce is among the most rewarding moments of our job. A divorce may be one of the most emotionally and financially difficult experiences in your life. Nevertheless, judges are flooded with divorce cases. When you get to court, a Judge is simply interested in getting four questions answered quickly, completely, and efficiently.

Is there going to be a divorce?

The answer is “Yes.” But there are two kinds of divorces: irreconcilable differences (or “agreed”) divorces and fault-based divorces.

To have an agreed divorce, you and your spouse must agree on everything from who gets the house, to who gets the retirement account, to who gets the kids, to who gets the dishes. Chances are, if you had the ability to agree on that level of detail, at the beginning of a process you barely understand, you would not be getting a divorce in the first place.

This is simply a divorce where you acknowledge that not all issues are resolved, and you ask the Court to resolve anything you and your spouse are not able to work out during the process.

DIVORCE LAWYER

If you’re facing a separation and divorce, you’re probably scared, confused or maybe overwhelmed. There’s so many things to consider, besides the fact that life is now upside down. It can be extremely scary if you own a business, especially if you’re property rich but cash poor. A divorce can make the difference in whether you keep the doors open or not

Community property is often hard to divide.

The more you own, the more susceptible you are to losing it all in a divorce. That doesn’t mean a spouse will get everything, but if you don’t have a lot of liquidity, settlement can be almost impossible. During the time of a divorce, particularly for a growing business, it’s not easy to get a loan for a buyout even if you’re in a comfortable position.

There are many different types of evaluations.

When you’re going through a divorce, there are a variety of ways to evaluate assets. Your bank has one method that’s often low. On the other hand, the representatives for your spouse will provide a very, very optimistic evaluation. You need someone that knows how to secure an evaluation that’s fair to you and a good divorce attorney can do that. The appraised value of the business dictates the amount you’ll have to pay to keep it.

Liquid assets may not be as easy either.

Everything counts in a divorce. While you might consider that liquid assets will be easy to divide, consider things like your 401-k or your pension. That takes some maneuvering through the tax laws and knowledge of both divorce law and pension law. A good divorce lawyer will help with the details. There’s a right way to handle pension plans and retirement funds to avoid penalties from the government. Legal help is imperative

Don’t come out broke just to keep the peace. You don’t have to fight when you have a good attorney representing you. The attorney handles the settlement to make your life more peaceful.

Matters can be even more complex if you have children. The potential to lose custody is always there, particularly if you’ve been busy building a business.

Bitter estranged spouses often look for areas that hurt you most to create more emotional upheaval. Whether it’s your business, home or child, a divorce attorney can help prevent some of the damage.

Some times, it’s the small things that are important. Don’t let a spouse prevent you from securing your personal assets and mementos that you cherish. If you’ve been locked out of your home, a divorce attorney will help you retrieve those items.