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How to Find a Divorce Lawyer

By George Khoury, Esq. on October 31, 2016 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

When a married couple, or just one married person, wants to divorce, the first concern is finding the right divorce lawyer. While a person's first instinct might be to hire their one lawyer friend, or the same lawyer that handled their injury case, or the cheapest lawyer they can find, unless those lawyers know divorce law, it's a big risk. With the help of online lawyer directories, the simplest way to find a lawyer is by calling as many as you have time to call, and talking with as many potential lawyers as you can.

Divorces can range in complexity from simple to impossible. When a married couple has no assets, no children, and both parties have their own equal incomes, the divorce may be as simple as just filing some documents that a court needs to approve. However, if there are children, a marital home, a shared car, a family business, and/or other assets, it is much more complicated.

So how do you evaluate a potential divorce lawyer?

Not Just Any Experience

One of the most important factors any client should evaluate when hiring an attorney is that attorney's experience in the type of law they will be asked to handle. For a divorce case, you may need an attorney who knows how to handle not only a simple divorce, but also child custody, and, if there was a family business, business transactions or dissolutions.

Ask your prospective attorney about prior divorces they have handled, and probe them about how complex those divorces were. Even if an attorney has been practicing law for 20 years, if they have never handled a divorce with child custody at issue, and you have children, you may not want to be that attorney's first.

Comfort And Trust After Experience

After you've found an attorney with the right experience, you should ask yourself whether you feel comfortable divulging private information to them. In order for your attorney to be effective, you will need to be able to discuss personal matters without hesitation.

While your sex life, generally, is not something that needs to be discussed, in some states, infidelity matters during divorce. Your attorney doesn't need to be your friend (and probably shouldn't be), but should be someone that you feel comfortable, and trust, with discussing potentially embarrassing information.

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