Finding an Attorney
Attorneys are plentiful. One of the simplest things in the world is finding an attorney to handle your divorce case. They are everywhere. The problem of course is finding a good attorney. Let me re-state that. The problem of course is finding an attorney that is good for you.
This is really going to be pure luck. Attorneys are like every other worker out there. It is first and foremost a job to them. They may or may not be very good or they may or may not be very good as your attorney.
Attorneys are officers of the court. They have a certain edict to follow in regards to the court. They are not going to finish up your case and never have to go back to the same court house again or never see the same opposing attorneys again. Keeping that in mind, your attorney is NOT going to go all out and burn every bridge they have in order to win every aspect of your divorce case. Why would they? They work there. The court is their boss. They don’t need to cause problems for themselves. This could be different if you were paying them the same dollars that high profile celebrities pay. Chances are you are not looking to pay much of anything, at least any more than you have to.
You’re probably thinking then “What is an attorney going to do for me?” The simple answer is… paperwork. Filing briefs and motions and sending letters and faxes to communicate with you, the court and opposing council. They do also speak for you when you are in court. That is an important point. When you are in court and you have retained council, then you are expected to allow your attorney to speak for you. In divorce cases, attorneys are summoned to the court before the couple gets to go in. The attorneys talk with the court and inform the court about where they are in the divorce case and then the couple is called into the courtroom where the Judge informs everyone about what his understanding of what is going on is.
You see, the Judge expects the lawyers and the couple to handle all the points of the divorce and to bring back to the court an agreed upon settlement where s/he will then sign off on it. Simple process right? Well it could be, but then again one or both of you might not agree so easily on a few points. This is where the fun begins. The court hears about your difficulties in coming to an agreement and he sets a new court date and sends everyone out with the expectation that you will all work towards a resolution. Now the next court date is 6 to 8 weeks away. Do you think your lawyer is going to run back to their office and hop on finishing up your case? Why would they? The next court date is a month and a half away. They can go through the hassle of meeting with you now and go over all the sticking points and then draft up an offer to opposing council to review. Your offer can be counter-offered by your spouse’s attorney and all of you can go back and forth for the next several weeks and finally come up with an agreed upon settlement or you might wind up being in the same stuck position by the time the next court date arrives.
Attorneys appear to rather wait until you’re a week or so before your court date and then they send out whatever offer or other correspondence is needed. This way there is not so much time to go back and forth and back and forth. There is a better chance that with the time constraint, both sides might be more inclined to give in a bit where if they had several weeks available to them, they might not be as open minded as they should. This of course is not going to matter much if both sides are not looking to put an end to things if they don’t get everything they want. You must be able to compromise to be able to move on.
Attorneys are there to help guide you through the legal aspects of the divorce. To facilitate the communication between council and the court. To represent you and protect you from your opponent and yourself. They can tell you what you can and can’t do and they can offer you suggestions as to how to proceed. The surprising thing to me is that they often don’t have answers to questions regarding how the court is going to respond to situations. When you get down to it, I suppose asking a lawyer what the Judge is going to do concerning a certain topic is a ridiculous question because only the Judge is going to be answer it. It would seem, however, that the attorneys would have a better instinct of what the court is going to do under the circumstances, but they can’t - because for good or bad, the court has a lot of grey areas.
So finding an attorney is not so much of an issue as finding one that can best handle your case at this point in time.
Based on my own experience, I would make the following recommendations in your attorney search.
- Your attorney should be experienced with the Court House / Judge that you will be working with because not all Courts / Judges work the same.
- Make sure the attorney you hire is going to be the attorney that represents you and not an underling.
- An attorney that is a great distance from the Court House will wind up costing you in travel, so finding a local one can be a real cost savings.
- An outspoken attorney trumps a book smart, low talking paper pusher every time. You need someone to speak YOUR mind in court. If all you have is a “Yes Your Honor, No your honor” librarian - you would be better off defending yourself.
- Beware of attorneys that appear to be too hard nosed about things. They themselves can cause your divorce to go on longer than needed until THEY get their way.
- Attorneys that need to schedule your first appointment several weeks out are probably too busy to take on another client. You might be better off looking elsewhere.
- Attorneys that take more than a day or two to return your initial call may also be a little too busy to take on another client.
- You need to feel good about the attorney sitting across from you. They are your representative. You have to have confidence in them to speak on your behalf. If they seem to rub you the wrong way, then they probably rub others the wrong way as well. You don’t need a lawyer who can’t play well with opposing council and the court. You don’t want to walk into the court with the troublesome lawyer because fair or not, you will already have a checkmark against you in the court’s eyes.
- Divorce attorneys can also involve themselves in other legal areas like house closings. Make sure that divorce proceedings are your attorney’s main bread & butter.
The court itself can provide a short list of attorneys in the area that they work with. This is an excellent way of finding an attorney that the court feels comfortable with, otherwise they would not have handed out their name.
