Three questions to ask before divorce

If you are fed up with your spouse and ready for a new lease on life, a divorce may be just what you need. But if you are not pre­pared for the reper­cus­sions that divorce brings, you may end in a pickle. There are three very impor­tant ques­tions that you will want to ask your­self before march­ing into divorce court. First of all, ask whether or not you can pay the debts you have by your­self? Mar­i­tal assets are gen­er­ally split in half through equi­table distribution.

This means that if your spouse has debt, you will need to take half. If you have debt, then you spouse will take half. This includes all expenses like stu­dent loans and mort­gages. Even if you have half the debt that you used to, you will still have pay it on a sin­gle income, rather than dou­ble income. If you don’t think you’ll be able to han­dle this, then you will want to care­fully con­sider whether or not it is worth it to pur­sue your divorce.

As well, you will want to ask your­self whether or not you should sell your home. If you own your house jointly with your spouse, you may run into com­pli­ca­tions when divid­ing the prop­erty. In a lot of cases, divorced spouses will sell the house and divide the profit. In some cases, the house may be more of a bur­den than an asset. For exam­ple, if you owe more on the house than it is even worth, you may be hop­ing you won’t be issued the house as a part of your divorce set­tle­ment. You will want to think about how to deal with a house in the event of a divorce to make sure that you are mak­ing the right decision.

The last ques­tion that you need to ask is whether or not you can afford to be a sin­gle par­ent. If you have chil­dren, then you will need to raise them with­out your spouse in the home to help. While you may end up co- parenting, this is not the same as a tra­di­tional, mar­ried fam­ily. You will want to care­fully con­sider whether or not you are finan­cially capa­ble of being a sin­gle par­ent. You may be able to obtain spousal sup­port and alimony from your ex- spouse, but they may not be enough. Care­fully think through these costs before you con­tact a divorce attor­ney to pur­sue a split.

With an accom­plished divorce attor­ney on your side, you will have the wise coun­cil you need to orga­nize an effec­tive divorce. You will want to care­fully out­line what finan­cial pay­ments you want to receive, and then go over your mar­i­tal assets and divide them equally and fairly. Talk to a Florida divorce attor­ney at Reyes Miller Law if you have ques­tions about fil­ing for divorce.

How to Choose a Family Law Attorney in Florida

When choos­ing a fam­ily law attor­ney to rep­re­sent you, you may be won­der­ing whether you even want to hire a lawyer. Hir­ing a knowl­edge­able divorce and fam­ily law attor­ney will indeed help you nav­i­gate the divorce and child cus­tody issues that must be addressed in your fam­ily law case. An expe­ri­enced divorce attor­ney, one who lis­tens care­fully and is respon­sive to your con­cerns, will guide you through each pro­ce­dure, will allay your fears, and will elim­i­nate con­fu­sion by bring­ing order to the process.

Not every lawyer will be knowl­edge­able enough or expe­ri­enced enough to fit the bill, how­ever, so you need to be very selec­tive. Your future is on the line. You need solid, reli­able, effec­tive legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Hir­ing a lawyer who doesn’t answer or return your tele­phone calls and emails, who doesn’t keep you apprised of what is hap­pen­ing in your case, or who han­dles the case in a man­ner that causes you addi­tional prob­lems, will make your life mis­er­able. Most lawyers will make you feel more con­fi­dent because you’ll get the legal sup­port you need at a time when you may be feel­ing quite vul­ner­a­ble. What we want is for you to choose the best divorce attor­ney pos­si­ble for your unique circumstances.

The Kind of Per­son You Should Choose.

Keep in mind that you are select­ing a legal advi­sor. You will be entrust­ing that indi­vid­ual with infor­ma­tion about almost every aspect of your per­sonal life — some good, some not so good. It stands to rea­son that you would want to select a lawyer with the qual­i­ties and char­ac­ter­is­tics that you find admirable, such as hon­esty, reli­a­bil­ity, sin­cer­ity, intel­li­gence, and lead­er­ship. A pos­i­tive sense of well- being flows from an affil­i­a­tion with the fam­ily lawyer who is best suited to your per­sonal needs. The lawyer you hire may pro­foundly affect the course of your life and your children’s lives, so be method­i­cal in your decision- making and do your homework.

Edu­cate your­self about the attor­ney and his or her law firm. Pre­pare a list of ques­tions to ask each lawyer can­di­date, then com­pare and reflect on the answers each attor­ney has given you. Don’t sim­ply hire the first attor­ney that you inter­view because he or she seemed nice enough. If you do, you will never be cer­tain that you made a good deci­sion. That uncer­tainty can under­mine your con­fi­dence in the attorney’s han­dling of your case. (Even if you go full cir­cle and do indeed hire the attor­ney you first con­sulted with, you will know that he or she is the right lawyer for you because you met the com­pe­ti­tion and they didn’t match your expec­ta­tions.) Don’t allow your­self to be pres­sured into mak­ing a deci­sion imme­di­ately, with­out meet­ing with a few other lawyers. Be cau­tiously selec­tive, this is one of the most impor­tant deci­sions you will ever make.

When you choose a lawyer, using the tech­niques that we rec­om­mend on our web­site, then you should be ready to take your divorce or child cus­tody mat­ter through each step in the process with less dif­fi­culty and greater con­fi­dence. By asso­ci­at­ing with a lawyer who under­stands fam­ily law, as well as human nature, you will pro­tect your men­tal and emo­tional health through­out the divorce process.

An Attor­ney Who Focuses on Your Rights and Interests.

Retain­ing an attor­ney can really make a dif­fer­ence in how the case pro­ceeds and how you fare in the end. Should you rep­re­sent your­self, your lack of knowl­edge in the law can really hurt your case. Seri­ous life- changing mis­takes can eas­ily be made and there are no do- overs in divorce. If, for exam­ple, you were to accept a set­tle­ment pro­posal from your spouse with­out ever hav­ing an attor­ney review the papers and advo­cate for your rights and inter­ests, then you could end up with much less in assets and sup­port. You could end up on the short end of the stick and never even know what hap­pened. By the time you dis­cover the neg­a­tive results of the set­tle­ment agree­ment, it’s too late — the deal is done.

In the divorce, you are a party to a law­suit and you have an adver­sary. You may still place trust in your spouse’s abil­ity to do the right thing for you, but this is not the time to rely on his or her good will. Actu­ally, doing so would be fool­hardy. Here are three good points to remem­ber: First, the other party may be con­sult­ing with a fam­ily law attor­ney (you’d be bet­ter off mak­ing that assump­tion, even when your spouse denies hav­ing done so). Sec­ond, do not go into a divorce believ­ing that if nei­ther of you has an attor­ney, it will be a fair fight. Third, don’t assume that your spouse’s set­tle­ment offer is fair and equi­table because he or she says it is.

We’ve pro­vided a lot of legal infor­ma­tion for you on our web­site. Look for the answers to your ques­tions as they occur to you, and keep learn­ing how the law applies to your case. We strongly rec­om­mend that you meet at least once with a fam­ily law attor­ney to make sure that your under­stand­ing of what the law is, and how it applies to your case, is the cor­rect under­stand­ing. As you would expect, your mis­taken assump­tions about the law could also hurt your case.

Don’t Delay – Meet the Attorney.

You may find your­self want­ing to put off mak­ing that ini­tial appoint­ment with a lawyer. Pro­cras­ti­na­tion only inter­feres with your access to the legal advice you really do need, and need now.

Attor­neys under­stand the emo­tional aspects of divorce, which can be an over­whelm­ing expe­ri­ence. There are feel­ings of hurt, anger, grief, jeal­ousy, sor­row, denial, and even dis­may. An expe­ri­enced attor­ney will fully Don’t put off meet­ing the attor­ney – sched­ule the ini­tial meet­ing early on. appre­ci­ate how dif­fi­cult it can be for you to seek help from a per­fect stranger on per­sonal mat­ters involv­ing your family.

But delay­ing a visit to the lawyer is, more often than not, a very big mis­take. Maybe you are in denial about the end of your mar­riage. Do any of these neg­a­tive thoughts ring true for you?

“My mar­riage isn’t so bad. I’m cer­tain that things will get bet­ter soon.”

“Lawyers scare me to death. I’d feel too intim­i­dated to meet with one on my own.”

“I can’t talk to a com­plete stranger about every­thing I’m deal­ing with, I’ll just fall apart.”

“I can­not cope as it is. There is no way that I can afford the fees that lawyers charge.”

Well, neces­sity is the mother of inven­tion. Once you’ve decided that you need a lawyer, you should be able to find ways to over­come the men­tal, emo­tional, and finan­cial bar­ri­ers, and get the best legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion you can for yourself.

How the Attor­ney Will Help?

If you don’t under­stand what lawyers do, or don’t under­stand why you might need to hire one, then you are unaware of the spe­cial­ized knowl­edge and skills that set attor­neys apart from non- lawyers. Fur­ther­more, you need to appre­ci­ate that fam­ily law prac­tice is loaded with highly tech­ni­cal rules. If you don’t under­stand all of the rules involved and how they affect you as a party to a law­suit, then you are unlikely to get the results you want from your case.

You might be under the impres­sion that the only time you need a lawyer is when you go to court. But prop­erly timed legal advice may pre­vent prob­lems from occur­ring, cut­ting off unwanted results. Well- timed legal advice may also dimin­ish the scope of exist­ing issues, or pre­vent issues from becom­ing more divi­sive. Using the ser­vices of a good lawyer as a pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure may save you time, money, and grief. Once you’ve decided that you need a lawyer, make the appoint­ment. Don’t pro­cras­ti­nate, sched­ule the meet­ing for as soon as possible.

The Process of Find­ing the Right Lawyer.

Choos­ing an attor­ney is an impor­tant deci­sion for you, but it isn’t your first impor­tant deci­sion and cer­tainly won’t be your last. Think of the selec­tion process as a problem- solving chal­lenge. You can do this, and here are a few tips to help you along the way:

1. Deter­mine what your pri­or­i­ties are for the legal ser­vices you’ll seek.

2. Deter­mine how you will gather infor­ma­tion about lawyers, the long list, and then nar­row that down to those who are most likely to meet your expectations.

3. Ded­i­cate the time and effort nec­es­sary to find a lawyer who will do the best job for you.

4. Ask your friends or fam­ily mem­bers for a per­sonal refer­ral to an attorney.

5. Learn the lawyer’s rep­u­ta­tion for spe­cial­ized skills.

6. Learn the law firm’s rep­u­ta­tion in the community.

7. Deter­mine whether you can trust this per­son with your future.

Gather Infor­ma­tion About Fam­ily Law Attor­neys in Your Area.

Gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion about fam­ily lawyers in your area starts eas­ily enough. You start by ask­ing ques­tions. Ask the peo­ple you trust and respect for leads to lawyers, or leads to other peo­ple who may have attor­ney rec­om­men­da­tions. Talk to your rel­a­tives, your friends and neigh­bors, your co- workers, and even your busi­ness con­tacts about their attor­neys and about attor­neys who have rep­re­sented peo­ple that they know. Clergy and men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als who pro­vide mar­riage coun­sel­ing or cou­ples’ cri­sis coun­sel­ing are often good sources of infor­ma­tion as well.

Do you know peo­ple who have been through a divorce? They may be your most valu­able asset when choos­ing an attor­ney. After all, they’ve been in your shoes, they know what you’ll be going through, and they under­stand what you’ll need from your attor­ney, par­tic­u­larly in light of an oppos­ing coun­sel. Also, ask­ing for attor­neys’ rec­om­men­da­tions is very use­ful in gain­ing insight about a fam­ily lawyer’s rep­u­ta­tion in the legal community.

State Bar of Florida, Vol­un­teer Lawyers, and County Bar Asso­ci­a­tions. One of the first places to find a lawyer is through the State Bar of Florida. Through the state bar’s web­site, you can select the type of law and the geo­graphic region for a list of attor­neys who sat­isfy your search cri­te­ria. The State Bar of Florida also has a Fam­ily Law Sec­tion with attor­ney mem­bers statewide who share an inter­est in the law of domes­tic relations.

The Vol­un­teer Lawyers Pro­gram (VLP) may be another lawyer resource for you. Lawyers vol­un­teer their time to assist indi­vid­u­als who have signed up for VLP legal ser­vices. These attor­neys pro­vide their time pro bono, that is free or at a reduced rate, and some do take on fam­ily law cases. Because the vol­un­teer pro­gram has min­i­mal resources, you shouldn’t rely on get­ting free legal assis­tance. There are more requests for VLP ser­vices than there are attor­neys avail­able to pro­vide help.

Addi­tion­ally, many local bar asso­ci­a­tions have lawyer refer­ral ser­vices. The Dade County Bar Asso­ci­a­tion has a lawyer refer­ral ser­vice. Check with your local county bar asso­ci­a­tion for pos­si­ble attor­ney refer­rals in your com­mu­nity. Cour­t­house Per­son­nel, Legal Ads, Direc­to­ries, and Brochures. A good place to get infor­ma­tion is from the cour­t­house per­son­nel who reg­u­larly inter­act with local attor­neys. Although court per­son­nel can­not make spe­cific rec­om­men­da­tions or offer legal advice, they can help point you in the right direction.

Another resource is the Martindale- Hubbell Law Direc­tory of lawyers. Adver­tise­ments and direc­to­ries pro­vide addi­tional infor­ma­tion about the kinds of cases a lawyer han­dles, where he or she attended law school, and the col­leagues asso­ci­ated with the lawyer’s prac­tice. When you begin vis­it­ing lawyers at their offices, always ask for a firm brochure to take home with you. Firm brochures will give you addi­tional insight into the firm’s oper­a­tions and what it aspires to accom­plish for clients.

Be sure their prac­tice is focused on Divorce and Fam­ily Law.

You want advice from the lawyer who stays cur­rent with changes in the law of prop­erty, asset and debt dis­tri­b­u­tion, child cus­tody and vis­i­ta­tion, child sup­port, and spousal main­te­nance (alimony). Legal advice from a fam­ily law prac­ti­tioner will be custom- tailored to your needs and goals. An in- depth under­stand­ing of domes­tic rela­tions law results in more cre­ative and more flex­i­ble solu­tions to prob­lems as they arise. You need to tar­get the most com­plex issues in your case before set­tling on the lawyer who could most prop­erly advise you.

Look­ing for the Best Match.

Now that you have a list of pos­si­ble attor­neys, it is vital that you meet any attor­ney who was rec­om­mended to you before you make your deci­sion. Your first con­tact with the lawyer’s office will prob­a­bly be by decid­ing on a fam­ily law attor­ney can leave you with many ques­tions. tele­phone. Some­times the tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion alone is suf­fi­cient to deter­mine whether a face- to- face con­sul­ta­tion should be sched­uled. If you decide to attend an ini­tial meet­ing, plan to con­duct your own inter­view of the lawyer. You need to assess whether your needs will be under­stood and ade­quately addressed by this par­tic­u­lar lawyer. No mat­ter how won­der­ful the rec­om­men­da­tion of a par­tic­u­lar lawyer was, your selec­tion of coun­sel is a highly per­sonal mat­ter. This is your deci­sion, your case, your life. When you hire an attor­ney, you entrust that per­son to safe­guard your rights and inter­ests at a time of emo­tional upheaval for you. The attor­ney you decide to hire needs to struc­ture a set­tle­ment that is as favor­able to you as pos­si­ble, and needs to advise you on highly tech­ni­cal mat­ters, such as the poten­tial tax con­se­quences of any pro­posed settlement.

Your per­cep­tion of who the lawyer is as a per­son will be extremely impor­tant in pre­dict­ing how much and what kind of atten­tion the lawyer will give to your case. The Ini­tial Con­sul­ta­tion. Imag­ine that it is your first meet­ing with the attor­ney. If he or she doesn’t strike you as some­one you can be con­fi­dent in, then keep look­ing. If the per­son doesn’t seem to be one who will zeal­ously rep­re­sent your best inter­ests, then keep look­ing. If the lawyer doesn’t appear to be some­one who can help move your case toward a res­o­lu­tion effi­ciently and sen­si­tively, then keep look­ing. If the meet­ing was stilted and you never had a sense of rap­port, or the lawyer wasn’t very atten­tive to your ques­tions and con­cerns, then keep look­ing. You do not want to hire a lawyer who is obvi­ously dis­or­ga­nized, who is dif­fi­cult to under­stand and log­i­cally fol­low, or who you sus­pect does not know the field of fam­ily law very well.

You Should Trust Your First Impres­sions. Our first impres­sions are often our last­ing impres­sions. If at the first meet­ing you feel uncom­fort­able or put off by the lawyer’s per­sonal style or prac­tice phi­los­o­phy, then you prob­a­bly won’t change your mind as time goes by. Select­ing a lawyer is a mat­ter of per­sonal taste, and you need some­one you can relate to. You know that your fam­ily law case will sig­nif­i­cantly affect you, both emo­tion­ally and finan­cially. Don’t make a chal­leng­ing time in your life more dif­fi­cult by choos­ing an attor­ney that you really don’t like and don’t con­nect with.

Attor­ney Fees and Firm Poli­cies. Pay very care­ful atten­tion to the lawyer’s responses to your ques­tions about the firm’s poli­cies and attor­ney fees. The attorney’s billing and col­lec­tion poli­cies should be clearly explained to you:

• Will you be billed at an hourly rate? What is that rate? Does it vary among per­son­nel in the law firm?

• Are dif­fer­ent rates charged for office work and court­room appearances?

• How will expenses such as pho­to­copy­ing, sec­re­tar­ial time, postage and the like be billed?

• Are you to pay in advance of receiv­ing services?

• Is there a retainer fee (ini­tial advance deposit)? Is it refund­able if the work is ter­mi­nated or com­pleted before the entire retainer has been used?

• Is a flat fee (fixed price for a spe­cific legal task) avail­able for any services?

• Will the billing state­ments be suf­fi­ciently detailed for you to iden­tify the exact work that has been performed?

• What will be included in the writ­ten fee agree­ment between you and the attorney?

With divorce cases, when issues are so often emo­tion­ally charged, clients are fre­quently under great stress. Under those cir­cum­stances, issues over legal fees can really poi­son the attorney- client rela­tion­ship when mis­un­der­stand­ings and mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tions are not cleared up promptly.

You should know from the very begin­ning pre­cisely how you will be charged for work done on your case. What addi­tional fees might be nec­es­sary to your case, and how you are expected to pay your bill. Vague answers to your ques­tions about fees and costs are unac­cept­able. All lawyers should be able to tell you about costs involved with han­dling your case, and an expe­ri­enced lawyer will tell you every­thing you need to know about fees so you can rea­son­ably make an edu­cated hir­ing decision.

Before filing for divorce

The event of divorce may be over­whelm­ing to go through for any indi­vid­ual, and no per­son should have to do so alone. Ellerin Hutchin­son is a fam­ily attorney’s office located in Florida that is ready to rep­re­sent spouses who are going through this hard time, and they are com­mit­ted to walk­ing every step of the way with their clients. Here are a few tips to con­sider if you are con­sid­er­ing divorc­ing your spouse, steps to take in order to make sure that you are accu­rately pre­pared beforehand.

Hir­ing a good lawyer to rep­re­sent your needs is the most impor­tant deci­sion that can be made. There are so many details involved in divorce such as child cus­tody, child sup­port, alimony, divi­sion of assets and prop­erty and more! The life chang­ing deci­sion for a divorce is going to be hard as it is, by hir­ing an attor­ney to look out for yours and your family’s legal needs will help lessen that burden.

Make sure you place your children’s needs first in the divorce, they are going to have a hard time with their par­ents sep­a­rat­ing as it is, so make sure you do what is nec­es­sary to be there for them. Even though you may have chil­dren of all ages, sit­ting down with them and explain­ing the sit­u­a­tion is very impor­tant, par­tic­u­larly when explain­ing that the divorce is not their fault. You and your spouse, though choos­ing to leave each other, need to reas­sure the kids that you are not leav­ing them; divorce is dif­fi­cult and they will need your love and atten­tion more than ever in this time.

Pre­pare finan­cially for when you divorce, this will help take the shock out of change in your finances in the future by prepar­ing now. Whether you or your spouse decides that the divorce is your next step, your prepa­ra­tion is going to really help you in the long run. Have a thor­ough under­stand­ing of you and your spouse’s debt and credit as well as what is under each of your names. While you may request to see your spouse’s credit, this legally requires that you seek their per­mis­sion; even though you are mar­ried it is against the law if you don’t have their consent.

Know your own income down to the penny, this is impor­tant when divorc­ing in the even that one spouse will seek alimony pay­ments or child sup­port. Orga­nize your income pay­ment stubs as well as your taxes so that you are pre­pared when need­ing to pro­vide this infor­ma­tion to your attorney.

Know your spouse’s income as well; this is going to be use­ful for deter­min­ing the alimony and child sup­port. You will want to get as much infor­ma­tion you can regard­ing their income and taxes, as well as any ben­e­fits they might receive from work count too. You will likely need their per­mis­sion to get this infor­ma­tion, though it is not always the case.

Find out who is respon­si­ble for the ben­e­fits and retire­ment plans in your mar­riage. Under whose name are the ben­e­fits and insur­ance plans? Who has the 401K sav­ings plans? These details are impor­tant in a divorce because they may be sus­cep­ti­ble to division.

Start bud­get plan­ning for the future! If you believe that your divorce is inevitable, it is never too soon to start plan­ning for tomor­row espe­cially when it involves your finances. Even if you are awarded alimony or child sup­port pay­ments, the way you spend money is going to be dif­fer­ent. In the event that there are no kids involved and you do have a job, you may not receive any finan­cial sup­port from your ex, and it calls for you get­ting used to mak­ing pay­ments on a sin­gle income rather than a dual income. This includes you plan­ning to rid your­self of debt if there is any under your name. Bud­get for how you will pay bills and pay off debt; this may call for a more fru­gal lifestyle for a while, but it is worth it if you know divorce is the route for you.

Make the nec­es­sary changes to your will if you are fil­ing for a divorce. It is likely that if you have chil­dren you will want to make sure they are well taken care of, and per­haps other fam­ily mem­bers, but in the event of a divorce most peo­ple will want to remove their exes from receiv­ing any­thing if they were to die.

Divorces can be a lengthy process, though with prepa­ra­tion and the assis­tance of a skilled attor­ney it can be a much sim­pler sit­u­a­tion to go through. Con­tact Yvette Reyes today for more infor­ma­tion regard­ing your divorce situation.

Preparing Financially for a Divorce

Going through a divorce may not be the eas­i­est time to go through, and yet as they say in many areas of life, prepa­ra­tion may help ease the process. While no per­son wants to start plan­ning for a divorce before they are ready, there are signs that a cou­ple may be head­ing that route, and when that hap­pens start­ing prepa­ra­tions may just be what helps you keep your stress lev­els to a minimum.

One of the first things you can do to finan­cially pre­pare for your divorce is mak­ing sure that you have your hands on the nec­es­sary doc­u­ments. This would include your credit card, invest­ment, retire­ment, and bank­ing state­ments. Keep track of all of your loan doc­u­ments along with you W2 forms and your taxes. Hav­ing these all together prior to the actual divorce fil­ing will save you a lot of time.

Another key aspect of prepar­ing finan­cially is to have a good under­stand­ing of you and your spouse’s assets, prop­erty, cur­rent income as well as your debt. Accu­mu­lat­ing this infor­ma­tion may take time, so prepar­ing for this prior to or imme­di­ately upon the deci­sion of a divorce is going to be ben­e­fi­cial. The costs of your divorce depend greatly on what type of a divorce it will be, for exam­ple if it is uncon­tested it means that you and your spouse will be able to come to an agree­ment of how you will divide assets, estab­lish child cus­tody, etc.

In the event that there is a con­tested divorce, there is the pos­si­bil­ity of lit­i­ga­tion and court fees, there­fore it will require you to pay more for the divorce over­all. With the help of an expe­ri­enced divorce attor­ney you will be able to go about your divorce process much more smoothly as well as make sure that you have a thor­ough under­stand­ing about the legal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of every deci­sion that is made. If you are in the Los Ange­les area, con­tact us today to dis­cuss your divorce and fam­ily law concerns.