Looking for the best divorce lawyer you can find in New York?

Divorce is a contact sport. It’s very tough. When you are on the receiving end of it, you need to have good back up. That starts with a good lawyer. The problem, of course, if defining “good lawyer.” Or “Best Lawyer.” Just because your lawyer is a mean bastard doesn’t mean he or she is “good.” Sometimes a mean bastard gets in the way of resolving a case. Don’t get me wrong. There is a time and place for the mean bastard approach. But some divorce lawyers are just mean bastards, period. That’s their reset button. And for many clients, that can cost you your last dime since the case becomes about the lawyer’s ego, and has very little to do with your best interest and resolving the case so you can move on with your life.

Some cases should settle and you need a lawyer who understands this fundamentally. There is such a thing as a collaborative divorce. There is such a thing as a mediated divorce. And it is for a reason. Not all clients want a blood bath. Not all clients want to pay their lawyer $300 per hour to achieve at trial what they can and should achieve by sitting down with the other side and coming up with a workable agreement that benefits both sides of this broken dream.

You need an attorney you mesh with. So you should talk with your lawyer, interview him or her and compare them to a few others before making a decision. How you you feel about the attorney’s personality? Do you think this is someone you can talk to? Someone who will listen to your objectives and follow through with initiatives that enables you to realize your objectives? Obviously, the attorney/client relationship is a give and take one. It is not that you are going to be this dictator and treat your lawyer like your slave/underling. But you do need to look for someone with whom you have mutual respect, and with whom you have enough chemistry so that you can get your goals achieved.

You can always find a lawyer who will low-ball the rest of the competition and charge you some really modicum hourly fee. And this could be a good lawyer. The hourly fee does not determine the quality of the lawyer. But the principles of caveat emptor applies even to lawyers. And so, with a grain of salt, consider that if you want good representation, you should be prepared to pay a fair and reasonable sum to your attorney. A lot of good things in the world are free. But good legal representation usually costs a pretty sum. A lawyer who isn’t being paid properly is going to have to cut corners to make things work. And you don’t want that. So be prepared to compensate your attorney appropriately.

I had a good friend who hired what she thought was a good divorce attorney and the reason she kept giving was that the attorney had gone to Harvard. About 5 attorneys later (for the same case) she came to the conclusion that all divorce lawyers were full of it and she now appears pro se in all these post-judgment proceedings trying to clean up a monumental mess of a case that her lawyers left her with. That brings me to the point that it is not necessarily the school a lawyer went to that makes him or her a good person to hook up with in this trench warfare called divorce.  Sometimes, you are better off with someone not afraid to get their hands dirty; not on this ego trip of how important their alma mater is; someone who puts you and your case at the forefront of their priorities for the limited time you retain him or her to represent you.

Where can you find good lawyers in New York? They are all over. You can try Bar Associations, Word of mouth, Google, Blogs, print advertising, so many ways that lawyers can be found today.  On the right hand side of this screen is a link “hire a divorce attorney.” Our sponsor also handles divorce clients and you should mention that you heard of them through our blog.

And sure,  sometimes, the situation does call for a mean bastard attorney and you do need your attorney to be able to turn it on and off. But mostly, it is almost always better to find common ground when trying to end a marriage….of course, if you have really deep pockets and money is no object and you don’t mind spending upwards of $250,000 on your divorce, then who are we to tell you to try  to find “common ground?”

If you are looking to hire a divorce attorney, go directly to our sponsor’s  website here: www.mynewyorkdivorceattorney.com

Good luck!

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