California Divorce Attorney Consultations Free Or Paid Consultation

Today, we’re going to talk a little bit more about consultations. So we’re talking about going on a consultation with an attorney.

This isn’t applied to us but we are here about giving information and providing information so people have the information they need before getting involved with an attorney because it’s kind of one of my pet peeves if you will.

So we’re talking about going on a consultation with a Divorce attorney and specifically if you should pay for your consultation or if you should find an attorney that’s offering free consultations.

So first of, I have my own opinion on this. And I tell people this every day who may want to talk to an attorney and are maybe looking for a more affordable way of getting that consultation through a free consultation.

But I want to share my opinion with you on this issue.

So if you’re going to go on a consultation for Divorce with an attorney, I feel personally that you should pay for your consultation and here is why.

And basically I’m going to talk to you about the differences so you can see the differences here.

So when you pay for your consultation with the Divorce attorney you are buying their time. You’re paying for their time.

So they are going be there for you. They’re going to answer your questions.

They know that their time is being compensated for their time. So they’re going to spend that hour, the consultations are usually an hour.

They’re going to spend that time answering the legal questions that you have.

Now going in to these consultations we recommend that you have a list of questions that you want to ask before you arrive because people often tell me that they went—the hour they went by very fast.

And they forgot to ask certain questions but the time is up. You can’t go back. You’re going to have to pay for another consultation.

Now here’s why say pay for their time in the consultation. There are ways and I’ll explain in this video there are ways that you can get a free consultation from an attorney.

First of all, some of them are just flat out offer. They offer free 30 minutes.

Generally, it’s a reduced time frame consultation or might not even be in an office consultation.

It may just be 15 or 30 minute phone consultation to discuss your case. But the problem with the free consultation is they don’t give you the legal advice in most cases you’re looking for.

What they’re trying to do by offering a free consultation is trying to sell you more on their services and what they can do for you as opposed to giving you a legal advice which you would get more of if you paid for their time with the paid consultation for your Divorce.

Another way to get a free consultation from an attorney if you’re going to go that route because, honestly if you flat out and don’t have the money then a free consultation is better than no consultation.

In that case what I recommend you do is go to your local County Bar Association. So what you want to do is Google.

So we’re in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County Bar Association.

If you do that for any county that you’re in there’s going to be a Bar Association that you’ll find.

The Bar Associations are group where the attorneys are members of, but they’re also are an attorney referral network.

So you can call them up, say, “I’m looking for an attorney for Divorce. I live in…” this particular city and they will refer you to an attorney.

And generally the agreement they have with these attorneys is if they refer them to someone for a referral that they’ll offer a free consultation.

That’s how it is in Los Angeles County. If you call them up, the Los Angeles County Bar Association “Hey, I need an attorney for Divorce. I need a consultation.”

They will pick one in at random. They will give you information to the law firm. The law firm will contact you directly to set up the consultation.

And generally it’s a free consultation.

So that’s the best the easiest way to get a consultation for free is to go by that route. But again, I stand by my belief that if you really want to get valuable, legal information you should pay for their time.

And the good news is even if it’s a $300 or $400 an hour attorney, they generally have fix rates for their consultation.

It’s not based on their regular hourly rate. It’s based on flat fee consultations.

You’re going to want to make sure to ask how much it is going to be for the consultation.