Top three things that people should know in a divorce, I think, really come down to these three things. And I have thought about them to make sure you as a consumer, somebody looking to get divorced, has the simplest but the most important things that you could follow.
The first thing
And one of those is, make sure you find the right divorce attorney. I think it’s really important to make sure that you do your research. You need to make sure that you read their reviews. That’s very, very important. Make sure you go to Google, also websites like Paloaltodivorcelawyers.com will have their reviews as well.
I also think it’s really important to interview a few attorneys, so make sure you schedule consultation with them, and you go and you actually talk to them.
And I always warn like, a free consultation might sound great at the beginning, but you get what you pay for.
So, if you want somebody to actually get a feel of what they are doing to do for you on your case, don’t be afraid of those attorneys. They are charging you for a consultation because they clearly are doing it for a reason because they don’t want to waste your time just as you don’t want to waste their time.
So, make sure that you interview a few attorneys and go with the person that really feels good and that you have good confidence about.
The second thing
The second thing I think is really important when you are going through a divorce is, I always say, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t email, text, or say it. And what that means is, just like when you are going through a divorce obviously things are heated. Your struggling with your spouse, or soon to be ex-spouse, and so people tend to let their emotions be worn on a sleeve. And I am telling you, those emails, those texts, those words are going to be used against you in court. It’s not going to help anybody.
So I always say, just keep your mouth shut, and for sure keep it off of social media, text messages, emails because those can be used against you in court.
So the best thing you can do is just play nice. Be the bigger person. Let them be the one that berates you on a text message and you don’t say anything in return. That’s going to be really helpful for the court when determining who is willing to co-parent, or who is willing to be more reasonable in a divorce to help you get through that.
The third thing
The third thing that I thought is really important when going through a divorce is invest in your divorce as if you would invest in yourself or invest in your future.
What I mean by that is, don’t get this mantra that if I don’t hire an attorney, I will keep it simple, I will try to keep peace with my spouse, and therefore we will try to creatively come up with our own divorce decree.
In my practice, I do more fixing of bad pro se decrees, meaning somebody that did it themselves than I actually do original divorces. And I think it’s because people get into this idea that, oh, we are on good terms right now, we will just right our terms down, and we will just keep the peace.
And what they don’t realize is that you are not thinking of anything in the future, you are not realizing that a good divorce attorney is there not only to help you through the divorce, but to protect yourself and your future.
Conclusion
By investing in your divorce, hiring a good attorney, I know it’s money that a lot of people don’t feel like they have, but it’s like investing in your future to be able to continue to grow, be successful in whatever you do.
