5 Reasons That You Need a Divorce Attorney
Becoming a divorce lawyer takes seven years of formal higher education, including a four-year bachelor’s degree and a three-year law degree. Read on to learn more about required education, skills and career statistics. Is becoming a lawyer difficult? 1. The challenging years of law school. The process of becoming a lawyer isn’t for the ...
What Do Lawyers Do?
You need someone who can take the following actions on your behalf:
While the attorney will need to gather information from you, he or she will take care of almost everything else , allowing you more time to take care of yourself and your family.
Expert Advice. Advertisement. An experienced attorney can help a person to make certain to receive everything that he or she deserves during a divorce. State laws do not necessarily support an even split of assets depending on the couple's situation.
If you simply forget to address an issue such as medical or credit card debt or if you underestimate or overestimate the value of an asset, you can make a significant mistake in a divorce proceeding. Such a mistake may cause financial harm or will require future legal proceedings to correct. By hiring an attorney, you can rest assured that you case is being properly handled the first time and that you are avoiding costly mistakes that you might regret for the rest of your life.
In many cases, a spouse is even entitled to retirement or other income that the other spouse will receive in the future. If your marriage has any complicated issues to settle, an attorney can be an invaluable resource. For example, if there is child custody and support issues, substantial income, debts, assets or future assets (an inheritance, ...
By using an attorney, you can be certain that the legal documents presented to the court will accurately state your wishes and that the divorce decree will be free of errors or unclear language that may make parts of the agreement difficult or impossible to enforce.
Though a court will review any divorce documents that you present, the court may not understand what you are trying to do on each point of the divorce. This may result in a divorce decree that states something other than what you intended. By using an attorney, you can be certain that the legal documents presented to the court will accurately state your wishes and that the divorce decree will be free of errors or unclear language that may make parts of the agreement difficult or impossible to enforce.
Though a person may use court provided documents to file for divorce, there can still be problems with completing the proper forms and providing adequate information and documentation. A person who goes to court without legal counsel may find that problems with the paperwork or other issues may result in a delay in the court's ruling. This may substantially delay the date that the divorce is final. By hiring an attorney, a person can avoid paperwork or other problems that could cause a delay and get the divorce completed as quickly as possible.
Battling through a divorce is prone to induce plenty of stress on you and your family. If you have children, they probably need you now more than ever. You also need to take proper care of yourself to avoid emotional breakdowns.
All divorce cases vary based on many factors, such as the income of both spouses, the number of children, and both spouses’ desires. You need legal expertise to determine what will work best for your case. Do not apply legal strategies that worked in someone else’s divorce in your case, as this may prove disastrous.
One of the hardest things to bear about a divorce is splitting your amassed assets throughout your marriage. According to Laurence J.
Due to the high levels of stress caused by divorce proceedings and lack of legal expertise, you may make very crucial mistakes that can cost you both financially and legally. Some mistakes could even jeopardize your child custody and deny you the chance to raise your child as you so desire.
Explaining yourself to the court may be very hard. This may further lead to the signing of a contract far from what you wanted for your divorce. To avoid such inconvenience, you may find it beneficial to file your divorce through your lawyer since they will know how best to phrase the contract and get you precisely what you desire.
Like all court cases, divorce proceedings may take a very long time. Filing out the proper forms and following them up during the entire process can be very difficult if you are not acquitted with the court proceedings and processes.
A divorce lawyer can help you focus on the “Big Picture”. While you may be solely focused on “winning” the case, a family lawyer will concentrate on creating the best deal possible – which may mean helping you to compromise on some issues so that you can get more of your “must haves.”.
A lawyer will help you create a reasonable settlement proposal; if the proposal is coming from the other side, your lawyer will let you know whether to settle, make a counter-proposal, or fight it out in court. 4. One word: paperwork.
Going through a divorce can feel like being buried alive under a mountain of paperwork to be filled out and filed with the court. Knowing which forms you’ll need for your unique situation can be challenging, and collecting all the information to complete them can be both difficult and tedious.
Divorce is an extremely emotional time for both spouses. You may experience feelings of sadness, betrayal, fear, depression, rage, confusion, and resignation – sometimes all on the same day!
A family lawyer can evaluate your situation and let you know the likely outcome if you take your case to court. Based on their experience with the judge and similar cases to yours, they’ll be able to offer a variety of legally-acceptable options to settle your case. If you and your spouse represent yourselves, you may agree on items that the judge will reject; when that happens, you’re causing more work and more delay for yourself, your spouse, the judge, and the court system. A lawyer will help you create a reasonable settlement proposal; if the proposal is coming from the other side, your lawyer will let you know whether to settle, make a counter-proposal, or fight it out in court.
In divorce, a good deal is one where both sides gave up some of what they had hoped to gain, but both can live with the settlement – literally. Family lawyers represent individuals with finite resources, not big corporations who have unlimited money to throw at a case, so they know cost is important.
However, most people find divorce to be a complicated and confusing process, and they’re grateful to have an experienced family lawyer to help guide them through it. You’ll need to make a lot of decisions that will affect the rest of your life – at a time when emotions may overwhelm your ability to think clearly.