A divorce lawyer can only represent one spouse in a divorce. This means that your spouse's lawyer will not give you any legal advice and will certainly not act to protect your interests. Your spouse will benefit from getting legal advice about divorce, and you won't. Even if you think you and your spouse have an agreement, hiring a lawyer by your spouse can be a sign that you no longer have an agreement.
Consulting with your own lawyer can help you assess the situation and better protect your interests. You don't know what you don't know, and consulting a lawyer before reaching a settlement can save you costly mistakes. A collaborative divorce could end you and your ex on terms good enough to be friendly with each other. However, it is always advisable that at least one lawyer review your agreement in an uncontested divorce to ensure that your rights and interests are protected.
I really like his point of view on how people should hire a divorce lawyer to help ensure that the division of property is fair and balanced. Under Section 1, traditional grounds of fault for divorce are represented and include adultery (cheating while having sex with someone other than the spouse), impotence (inability to consummate the marriage), total desertion that continues for at least one year prior to filing the petition for divorce, gross and confirmed (i) A complaint may be amended at any time during the divorce with the filing of a Motion to Amend, which is generally allowed by the court without the need to appear. You should hire a divorce lawyer in situations where it is difficult to reach agreements between you and your spouse, or if you want to better understand your rights. You should hire a lawyer if you and your spouse have difficulty agreeing on terms on how to handle these issues.
If you've never been divorced before, the process can feel scary and uncomfortable, so before you hire a divorce lawyer, you should do your research to make sure you're getting the best for your situation. So clearly, a key task is to get a short list of high-quality local divorce attorneys who charge within your price range. If you follow the DIY route (called Pro-Se Divorce), consider consulting a lawyer even if you don't hire a divorce lawyer for the whole case. Because of this, mediators can often reach successful settlements in divorce cases much faster than lawyers.
Depending on what state you live in, you may not even have to appear in court to have your divorce finalized, if you can prove that the divorce is not contested and that you have resolved everything. For example, child or spousal support, large financial settlements, or company valuation will surely come up in any divorce case involving children or businesses, so you need to make sure your lawyer knows what they are doing. A recent article in a legal newspaper quoted a Los Angeles lawyer as saying that when he enters a divorce trial, he has a specific plan for exactly how he is going to present the evidence and argument. You hire a specific lawyer because you agree with the way you do things, so the last thing you want is for your case to be handed over to other lawyers in the firm.
