70% Of California Divorce Cases Are Without An Attorney
It has been about 2 years since I have discussed this and I figure as we start to get busy again with divorce filings at the beginning of the year, it is good to discuss again.
70% of divorce cases never have an attorney involved and 80% of divorce cases end and finalize without an attorney. Why is this? And why is the first thing people think is attorney when they are thinking about getting divorced? If you were to ask around, it would appear that everyone uses a divorce attorney for their divorce, but you are just hearing about your friends with nasty divorce cases.
Many people quietly end their marriage peacefully using our Legal Document Assistant service throughout California. But you don’t hear about these divorce cases. You only hear the news about celebrities getting divorce and how they take years and costs millions. And everyone has a friend who got “screwed” in their nasty divorce who seems to share that information with everyone and so everyone feels this is the way divorce is supposed to be. So far from the truth.
So why is it that 70% never use an attorney and 80% finalize without one? That statistic does not seem to make sense. Here is why. For those people who hire a divorce attorney either at the beginning or somewhere at the middle will part ways with their divorce attorney prior to the case finalizing.
This happens either because the parties settled prior to the trial or what is even worse is that the parties can no longer afford their attorney and the divorce attorney drops them prior to trial.
I get calls all the time where people have hired a divorce attorney, spent countless ten’s of thousands of dollars and right before they need their divorce attorney the most, they can’t afford to pay them so the divorce attorney drops them. Now they are left to handle their trial all by themselves.
For this reason, I tell people that even if you have a contested case and you know you are going to need an attorney, start your case with us and save as much money as possible so that when you really need a divorce attorney you can hire one and have them see it through. Well, at least the 20% of you who will need one!
If you can spare yourself the cost of an attorney. Use an alternative service such as our Legal Document Assistant service or mediation if possible.