How To Be Your Own Lawyer In Family Court

How To Be Your Own Lawyer In Family Court

How To Be Your Own Lawyer In Family Court – For over 10 years I have owned and operated a boutique family law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every month, without fail, we receive one or two requests from people who used a legit (DIY) website and faced some kind of problem with it. Often they want us to fix the problem but are also frustrated that they have to pay a lawyer to do it. After all, their whole reason for going online is to avoid expensive legal fees.

The problems our clients face range from having their court documents refused due to failure to prepare the correct forms (or complete them completely) to trying to enforce a condition in the document (eg, maintaining children or custody) and fails to do so. Do this because the contract is not specific enough or because it does not say what it thinks it says. Sometimes it’s a quick fix – but often we have to start over, spending hours repairing the damage. Other times we have to be the bearer of bad news, unable to solve the problem. For example, we recently had a client agree to forfeit his interest in community property in exchange for increased spousal support. The online legal platform he uses requires that spousal support changes require more forms to be filled out. Since the DIY platform does not provide these forms, the spouses agree to go ahead and complete the forms later to finalize the divorce. They had never filled in the form. More than a year later and when the husband stopped paying the additional amount of support agreed upon, the wife tried to enforce the “agreement.” But the divorce decree says nothing about spousal support. In fact, the woman did not intend to waive the support by not completing the form.

How To Be Your Own Lawyer In Family Court

Divorce is the end of the biggest emotional and financial contract for most of us.

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It’s exhausting and heartbreaking (even a happy divorce) – and it burns fast. Navigating the 20+ forms commonly required for a California divorce, trying to understand how and when to file and submit each document, and negotiating with a spouse can be difficult. Therefore, many people give up, leaving them vulnerable to the consequences of filing for divorce improperly.

Legal areas that prepare documents such as wills or powers of attorney. In consumer-facing areas of law that require court involvement (such as divorce and landlord/tenant matters), however, navigating clerks and the Court is an art. While this is not necessarily rocket science, it is an acquired skill. For example, some counties “require” forms that the state literally calls “optional.” In addition, the forms are useless if a person does not know where to file them or contact the service.

You don’t need to sign a form to do this, you do need a lot. It’s a process of signing, filing, serving, serving, filing (again). And it certainly doesn’t take a day to settle – usually three to six months and the average time is 18 months. Above all, it is like everything written in a foreign language. And this language is called legal and understanding is a skill that many people do not know.

Due to the complexities of the procedure and the complex legal requirements involved in divorce, it has long been believed that the most economical way to handle it is to hire a lawyer for full representation.

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The average cost of a divorce in the United States is $18,000 ($27,000 if you have children)—per person. Most people cannot pay this high fee and/or do not want to take advantage of the little financial liquidity they have to pay, especially given the fact that they live in a one or two income household . . Not surprisingly, 85% of Americans do not have representation for their legal needs and nearly 90% of divorces involve at least one representative party.

After learning these statistics, I knew something had to be done. I knew that if I wanted to create a new type of divorce service, I needed to find a way to make it financially sustainable—not just for me, but for other attorneys as well. If I did not design a model that would be financially profitable, no one would accept this new way of providing legal services. I face a big challenge:

. So, I put aside the risk-averse lessons I learned as a lawyer and used the part of my creativity—the part that made me feel powerless, alone, and confused in the legal world on after giving experience. late puberty I don’t want anyone to feel the way I feel, which drives me to take action to change the experience for others. So, I did Hello Divorce.

I know it’s easy for lawyers to be skeptical of DIY law – and many people shy away from DIY options. Others can innovate in other ways such as offering flat fees or unbundled services, both of which are useful but not enough to empower consumers or seriously disrupt the existing legal system. But I have an idea and I want to understand it.

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Now that I’ve decided to take this path, how do I get started? First, I need to know what people want in a DIY divorce service. So, I started a design sprint. With the help of Yeti LLC, a design and development company, I interviewed hundreds of people to find out exactly what help people could use in navigating the divorce process on their own. Although technology and performance are important factors, they are only two components. to the extreme,

With this information in hand, I had to map out the user experience, which might be elementary to developers and UX people but new to me. I have to think about every aspect of what happens in the divorce process—not just the form and procedure, but the whole process from start to finish. When someone says they want a divorce, not only do they have to think about living conditions, child support, and finances, but they also have to deal with the fear, anger, pain and sadness that comes with it. in the wake of life. It is important to account for the emotional aspects of the user experience process.

The next step was to decide if what I had designed was a viable product. I have to test the market to see if there is any interest. So, first we built a website using WordPress, taking advantage of every add-on and integration available to start a working website. This is a dangerous and tedious process. Many nights are spent manually working on the back end of the website to create a smooth user experience. Besides thinking about technology, I have to deal with many ethical issues, some of which include unauthorized practice of law, fee sharing, and conflicts of interest. I’m actually putting the most money into trying to figure out how to do something that doesn’t break the current regulations.

The website and concept received mixed reviews. I definitely have haters, including a Stanford professor I met at a Women in Tech retreat who accused me of giving consumers false hope and breaking regulations. But what I found was that the pioneers in the industry and the people in legal technology followed me and encouraged me in every possible way.

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So, I built a clan of good people and bright legal minds and began the hard work of attracting clients.

Without spending dollars on advertising and grassroots marketing efforts, we get clients. Our services range from DIY Divorce to Legal Document Assisted Divorce and Lawyer Led Divorce. Even those who participate in mediation, turn to us for negotiation strategies and/or to review their marital settlement agreement before signing it.

The best part is that we offer these services at incredibly reasonable prices. All fees, whether subscription-based or a fixed rate, average about $1,500 – about $20K less than the average divorce costs.

In May, 2019 we launched Divorce Navigator 2.0 — a state-of-the-art, first-of-its-kind platform and now a new mobile-friendly app we created with design and development company Yeti LLC . Divorce Navigator integrates impact-minded design and production software from Documate that guides users through every step of the divorce process. Anyone can use it and it works even if a spouse doesn’t use it. In fact, even if one is fully represented by an attorney, they can use it to prepare all the forms themselves and then bring them to their attorney for review.

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Here’s how it works. First, the user completes a guided interview. As a certified family law specialist, I call on my 15 years of experience.

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