Walk into any divorce lawyer's office with the ability to pay their retainer and many of them will not care too much about the facts of your case, your intentions or your goals. The simple fact is too many divorce attorneys care more about whether or not you have the ability to hire them than whether or not they can actually help you. Our attorneys handle things differently.
Our lawyers do not first speak with you about your ability to hire us. We first want to know whether or not the facts of your case, as well as your intentions, motivations and expectations are reasonable and consistent with California family law.
One of the most frustrating things that a family law client can go through is to spend thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars on a divorce attorney only to find out the legal position that he or she took for the set of facts that existed were not sufficient to give the client the remedy or conclusion that the client expected.
Doing it right starts with the initial phone consultation and progresses to an in-person meeting. Let's take a look at our process.
Initial Contact - A Phone Conversation
The phone consultation with your divorce attorney at our law firm starts with an understanding of the basic facts. We want to know:
- The length of your marriage,
- The number of children that you have,
- The reason for the divorce unless it is simply irreconcilable differences (knowing the reason sometimes helps us understand the types of behavior we can expect from your spouse during the divorce),
- The basic information about assets and debts as well as each of your income and expenses.
Our attorneys consider this to be important foundational information before we even have a conversation about fees.
Once the divorce attorney with whom you consulted by telephone determines that your case is a good fit for us and our lawyers are a good fit for you, then we will bring you in for an in-person consultation.
In-Person Consultation
In-person consultations are offered at an affordable price. That price can vary depending on the issues. Most of the time, it ranges between $150.00 to $300.00 for one hour of time. During the consultation, we will we expand on the important or immediate issues we discussed by phone and come to a consensus on the direction of your case.
Our attorneys will want to talk to you about your goals and what you believe will be the issues that you and your spouse will be able to work through and resolve as well as the issues for which you and your spouse may require court involvement. We realize that nobody has a crystal ball and our attorneys are no exception to that rule, but understanding the facts of your case as well as the areas that may be contested and uncontested will help us figure out not only a preliminary strategy on your case but a potential budget as well.
All of these things assist us to give you a quote that is consistent with the needs of your case and not just a number that applies to every client regardless of the facts. Regrettably, most divorce attorneys use the latter approach and have one retainer, one deposit and one hourly rate to fit every single case, no matter how simple or complex.
As our clients have written in the past, our attorneys interview you as much as you interview us. Our lawyers at Farzad & Ochoa like to represent good people with the right intentions and motivations. We do not represent spouses or parents who intend to use the children as leverage and we work hard to win custody cases when the other spouse does so, who have committed domestic violence against their spouse, who have made or intend to make false allegations of domestic violence or child abuse or intend to hide income or assets.
Our knowledgeable, intelligent and experienced lawyers do however, represent clients who care for their children, want what is right, fair and consistent with the law, and don't want to go broke getting through their divorce.
While no lawyer should ever make you any guarantees regarding the results of your case and certainly we do not ever do so, our attorneys believe that a strong and focused representation of good clients with the right intentions often does result in success.
But you don't have to take our word for that. Take a look at our client testimonial page as well as our recent case results page to see for yourself what our team has been able to accomplish and what our clients say about us.
Are you ready for an affordable consultation? Don't hire an attorney just because he or she tells you what you want to hear. Instead, your choice should be the one who takes the time to go over with you the facts as well as the law so that you can make intelligent and informed decisions and not emotional and unreasonably expensive ones. We offer an affordable, initial strategy session.