Despite all the benefits of an online divorce, there are still some hangers-on that think the best way to handle their divorce is to hire a lawyer. What many of these people do not know is that hiring an attorney to handle your divorce can be just as scary as doing it yourself. Although these are not always true, you should be prepared with the proper knowledge before making your decision.
An attorney is only an attorney. In other words, your attorney is only capable of handling the legal aspects of your divorce. Unfortunately, many other areas come along with the divorce process, and these costs can add up extremely quick. Whether it be emotional support from a therapist to a forensic accountant, a lawyer is not capable of helping you deal with these equally important issues of divorce. As a result, large errors can be made that can cost you thousands of dollars due to oversight.
Additionally, it is unethical for your attorney to outright guarantee a specific outcome for your settlement, and it can even result in sanctions from the state Bar. However, this doesn’t stop many because the reality is that the market for attorneys is over-flowing. With record numbers of new law school graduates carrying mountains of student loan debt each, there is a lot of competition for your patronage. Some of those looking for that income will do just about anything to get it.
Again, although not all attorneys are guilty of this, the financial crisis of 2008 required many law offices to lay off staff. That means that more lawyers are doing the time-consuming grunt work that they would normally have someone else do while they worked on your case. As a result, they have less time to work on your case, which results in a lot of waiting. Still confused as to why more people are looking at an online divorce forms service to handle their divorce? With the increasing divorce rate, that means even less time being available for your case when your attorney has several more that are practically identical.
It is also possible that your attorney is intentionally making things take longer. Longer duration means more billable hours, and that means little incentive to resolve the matter quickly. This is particularly nefarious because your income inevitably reduces in a divorce, meaning (obviously) that you have less to spend. We spoke about that issue a bit in our blog ” life after divorce.” However, with lower incomes for attorneys, it is no wonder that some fall to the temptation of dragging things out just a little longer in the name of “thoroughness.”
Of course, the last thing they are going to tell you is that you do not actually need their services and that your California, New York, or Texas divorce forms could just as easily be filled yourself, depending on the circumstances. To be clear, we do not dislike attorneys or think that their services are not valuable–obviously, in some cases, they are! However, it pays to be careful and know what you are actually getting for your money. You may find that the insurance policy of having an attorney is actually something you never needed in the first place, but that is for you to decide.