Choosing A Lawyer That is Right For You

Posted on December 12th, 2007 by Guy Lewis

In this article I discuss choosing one of the two most important people you may need depending on your situation. If you have a divorce ahead that is looking like its rough and your relationship is filling you with doubt and confusion about your part in it (or even not!) then the two most important people you need to trust will be your lawyer / solicitor and your counsellor / psychotherapist / therapist. I use different names for each since they are somewhat interchangable and vary depending on where you live in the world.

Just to remind you, I am a qualified consellor & psychotherapist and serve a broad range of clients with day to day and life issues. My training is within a number of models of which I major in the psychodynamic model. The psychodynamic model puts emphasis on the comparison between the past and present, seeking to understand a client through understanding their past and upbringing to make links to their situation and behaviour they present today. Psychodynamic psychotherapists and counsellors also put thought to the connection between them and their client, looking to discuss how their client is feeling about them. The psychotherapist and counsellor also reflects on how the client makes them feel as well looking for their own behaviour and looking to seek out any feelings that may be generic for many people connected to their client.

As I sit here I am reminded of my own experience of sepraration and divorce. I found out my wife was having an affair on the night of Christmas Eve. It was a complete shock to me but since then I have learnt so much about myself and my situation. I have helped people with some very abusive relationships literally escape from them and live a new life in addition to helping people work through to the point where they realise their relationship is really not that good for them and they were protecting it and in denial about how horrid a situation they were in. I hope the following two parts can help you get your process moving as swiftly and fairly as can be achieved.

If things get too hard sometimes, take some time out to meet others who have gone through what you are going through so you can see there really is light at the end of the tunnel. I personally recommend a night in with a glass of your favorite drink and watching ‘Intollerable Cruelty’ with George Cluney and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Note, to myself. Quote this film as many times throughout my documents from now on.

Onwards then. In part one I discuss..

Choosing A Lawyer / Solicitor For Your Separation and Divorce.

What type of Lawyer / Solicitor do you need?

You need one you can trust and one that has the right experience for your situation. Lets break that down a little more. You will be looking for a professional lawyer or solicitor that you can trust by asking around and getting recommendations. Don’t forget however, if you are asking for recommendations be sure to let people know what legal services you need. There’s no point in going to a lawyer who doesn’t work in divorces and specialises in another field. You also need to get to trust this person yourself. This happens later when you meet and start to work with them.

Plan Your First Meeting

Make sure you have all the facts to hand, all letters and documents such as asset registers and details of your personal circumstances and dependent children.

Make a bullet point list of key points you want to explain and list these in order of event, i.e., “found out wife was having affair. She left the family home saying she wanted nothing to do with me and the children. I’ve had to leave work to look after kids but now she is back asking for half the house.” The listing order tells the laywer in this case that the client’s spouse has already left the house and abandoned her responsibility towards the children albiet for a short period of time at least. Likewise, you may need to list, “Ive met someone I want to spend the rest of my life with and although upset at leaving my children I left temporarily when the situation at home got too hurtful and the children were being effected. Ive met with my husband to start to discuss divorce proceedings and now want to obtain the services of a solicitor”.

Another point here is that both explain the same situation from different points of view. This will more than likely be the case in your situation too. The best you can do is focus on the facts and remove as much emotion as possible. Lawyers / Solicitors are very well aware of the challenges to your emotions throughout a separation and divorce and many have good counselling skills since they need to work with people who are on the edge of breaking down a lot of the time as it is such a stressful time of many people’s lives.

However they will more than likely stress to you that they need to work with the facts and that any emotive activity will get in their, and your way. That doesn’t mean they will not be interested in any abuse you receive but they will be keen to ignore the regular arguments and focus on moving the process of separation and divorce on along efficiently if they are professional and someone you can trust.

Ok so with that in mind you are ready for your first meeting with your potential lawyer / solicitor.

Your First Meeting

Consider your first meeting your opportunity to evaulate the lawyer / solicitor as much as their opportunity to understand if they want to work with you too. With documents in hand meet and tell your story as briefly as possible.

Ensure you give the laywer / solicitor opportunities to speak and ask questions. Give him / her time to think about what you are saying, don’t be intimidated by silent pauses as he / she thinks through what has been said.

Be sure to ask how much experience they have in separations and divorce. Do they specialise or are they more general? Can they cover all aspects of a separation and divorce or will they hand over some areas (such as asset splitting) to a partner or even ask you to look elsewhere for those services. The best route forward clearly would be to get a single lawyer to cover all your separation and divorce and choose a specialist although in more rural areas you may need to accept a lawyer / solicitor who does more than one legal specialism.

Any references at the point will be useful but be clear if you are not sure if you want to proceed and want to go away to think about all that has been said. Even if you say yes go ahead but choose to cancel later on you should do so at the earliest oppportunity to minimise additional costs.

Make sure you are clear of the cost of the lawyer / solicitor’s time and ask at the end once he / she has a reasonable idea of your situation and its complexity what sort of estimate would they put to completing the divorce. This will help you with financial planning although it is hard for anyone to know how much it will cost in addition to how long it will take to complete. Clearly the length of time may not make a difference to costs as you may find the pace is slow, or you choose a slower route so as not to consume you and your spouses time.

Explain to the solicitor / lawyer that you will expect & need good communication and access to him / her at all times, ensuring you know if he / she is away on holiday or business before hand and that in all other circumstances if you leave a message during the working day you expect a response from him / her, or a statement of progress by his / her legal assistant within 24 hours of your call. You will need to be sure of this if your situation worsens so as to ensure that if you are experiencing abuse that you can get the process moving for restriction orders as soon as if reasonable.

Ongoing Administration and Management of Your Relationship With Your Solicitor and The Task At Hand

Keep your relationship professional. Don’t try to use your solicitor for a ‘solder to cry on’ go elsewhere for that. Always copy your solicitor into all mails you receive and send to those involved in the separation. Ensure that you also mail your solicitor with the details of any face to face or telephone conversations that are significant.

Keep a copy of all interactions so that you can go back and see who said what and when. This is important purely because you wont know when you need it until later, so keep a record, keep it up and keep on reminding yourself that the detail may be really valuable some time in the future.

Also, don’t forget that even if you are able to prove you said something on a certain date and your ex tells you he / she cant remember you saying that, it could well be because they are overwhelmed with all that is going on too, so give them some slack before you rush in an acuse them of being obstructive.

Keep all your documents in a safe place. If your document, particularly your correspondences with your solicitor are accessed you may be compromised heavily.

A word of warning here with regards to personal computers: don’t use a computer to store or email your solicitor that anyone else has password access to. Of course by saying this Im also stating have a computer that you have the only password access to, and your password is not obvious or has anything to do with you (dogs name, maiden name, mother’s maiden name, favorite place etc etc… just look up a word in the dictionary and muck about with it but make sure you can remember it).

See my article on Securing Your Privacy for some risk avoidance.

In some situations parents agree that the absent one can have access to the family home to see and look after children. This can become a problem when the absent parent’s self esteem triggers suspicions about you and goes looking for evidence in the house whilst you are out and they are supposed to be looking after the children. Once again, a situation that can trigger a highly emotive situation, yet is a common occurance and something that can be avoided if you are stricter about access, and, or make sure that all your important documents and significant posessions are held securely in a safe that can not be moved that you only know the code for (or the only key).

Don’t forget, when people are very emotional about a relationship breakdown they can become very desparate people. Make sure you reduce the risk of emotional events by keeping your boundaries tight. You may feel uncomfortable being in the same house as your ex too. If so, talk to your solicitor about this and take his or her guidance about telling your ex that you need to have your privacy without accusing them of potentially being abusive or violent, which could be implied if you are not careful.

Be warned, if you use your solicitor to try to trigger someone to become emotionally charged you may find yourself in a corner of a dead end alleyway one day. Likewise, if you feel your ex is trying to trigger you (and the phrase “choose your ex’s wisely comes to hand) separate yourself from your emotions by thinking about how, if you do respond, are being controlled by your ex, and you are to blame for letting that happen. Strong words from me for the few of us, or for all of us at that time in our lives when we are traumatised by what is happening to us.

Choosing a counsellor / psychotherapist is here.