1. Review by former clients
It’s good to be liked. It’s better to be loved. Whatever line of work you are in, you want those you work with, work for and are paid to do a job to be happy with the result. What attorneys do for a living is not easy.
Any court system is unpredictable. Nobody can make guarantees. We certainly do not. However, when you search for a divorce attorney, you do so with the hope you find one that has successfully handled cases similar to yours, even if the facts were not the same. If you have a custody case, you want a divorce attorney who has experience handling custody cases.
If you have a case with difficult or complex support issues, you want to find a divorce attorney who has not only handled such cases but has gotten fair results for his or her client. Got a vindictive spouse? You want someone who knows how to deal with such cases. False allegations of abuse? Same thing. That is why we have the family law testimonial pages of this website. So clients who have hired our law firm can tell you about their experience with us, honest experiences and those that are heartfelt.
2. Case results
We said no guarantees and we mean it. I sometimes joke with my clients that I lost my crystal ball a long time ago. However not being able to predict the future does not mean that we cannot plan and prepare for it. Take a look at our family law case results page. We didn’t predict those divorce and family law case victories in court. We didn’t need a fortune-teller to get great settlements and results for our clients. What we did need and we had was care and attention to the case, regular communication with the client and hard work. We did it for them. We will work hard for you.
3. Initial phone call with the divorce attorney
The initial phone call to a divorce attorney can be stressful. After all, you’re not sure what to expect and you don’t know whether or not your attorney will take the time to speak with you, answer your questions and understand your concerns or simply want to know whether or not you are ready to make the payment he or she wants. Unfortunately. Too many divorce attorneys don’t really care or want to pay attention to the client’s issues and concerns. Instead, they just want to be retained and paid so they can move on to the next case. We are not like that.
From the first phone call, we put you at ease and take our time to go over the questions. It is possible that by the end of the phone consultation, we may mutually decide that our divorce attorneys do not fit within your budget. However, many clients that call us do “fit” and that is because we treat each client who calls as an individual and not just another case and we take the time to find out what the issues are, what issues can be settled and which ones need to be litigated. Then, together, we give you a quote that is competitive and reasonable.
4. The in-person consultation
That in person consultation that you have with your divorce attorney should be an extension of the telephone call. By the time you meet your divorce attorney, you should have had most of your questions answered and have decided to meet to clarify issues and to make sure that both of you are on the same page, most importantly with reasonable expectations and goals.
Too often, divorce attorneys do not take the time to recap the issues and concerns to make sure the client fully understands what services your attorney will provide and for what initial cost. We can’t give you a promise on what your fees will be but we can let you what time needs to go into your case and what the variables are that may cause your ultimate fees to be less or more than what we hope.
We make this process easy and straightforward. When you meet with the attorney divorce attorneys in our law firm, we take the time to discuss strategy, budget and expectations. It is normal to not know what to expect. It is normal to not be sure whether your ideas of how things should be are realistic or not. An attorneys’ job is not to be your cheerleader nor a doom and gloom sayer. Instead, what our attorneys do is take the time to tell you the truth and make sure that you are aware of the law and how that law applies your facts.
Got more questions? You should. And you should get answers. Contact our experienced divorce attorneys for a strategy session. We have offices in Orange County and Los Angeles. We represent clients in each of the seven Southern California counties.