How to Prepare for Your Divorce or Family Law Consultation
You’ve done your research and scheduled your consultation. But, now it’s time to prepare for your meeting. In order to make the most of your time with the lawyer it’s important that you:
Organize Your Thoughts: The attorney knows that you will have questions, so make sure that you write those questions down and organize them by topic. If you are consulting with a lawyer on a divorce matter you may want to organize your questions as follows:
Procedure - What are the grounds (or reason) for the divorce? Where do we file for divorce? What are the steps we take to get in front of a Judge? How do we let my spouse know that I’ve filed for divorce?
The Children - How does custody work? How does child support work? What does the Judge want to see or hear from me in order to get the best outcome?
The Finances - Am I entitled to spousal support/maintenance? Can I have my spouse pay my counsel fees? What happens to the house?
The attorney may have his or her own method for running through all of the relevant topics of your matter. Having your questions organized will allow you to address those questions at the right time, if the attorney does not answer them automatically.
Gather and Review Your Relevant Documents: The right attorney wants to provide you with as much information as possible during your consultation. This means he or she will need you to have certain answers on hand, while other issues may require a review of the actual document.
For example, if assessing the equity in the marital residence, an attorney may simply need you to provide an estimated value of the property (which may be obtained from Zillow) and an estimated balance of the mortgage. Whereas, if there are prior orders or written agreements, the attorney may actually need to review the exact language of the document in order to assess your ability to modify or enforce the terms.
That’s why it’s important that you not only compile your documents, but also that you familiarize yourself with the pertinent information.
Let the Attorney Lead: A legal consultation is much different than a counseling session, where you are there to do most of the talking. In a legal consultation, you are there to get as much information from the attorney as possible. He or she will let you know if the details of a certain subject is required in order to provide you with an accurate assessment of your legal circumstances.
For example, the reason why you and your spouse are getting divorced is generally not considered by the Court, so spending a lot of time discussing those details may not be the best use of your limited time with the lawyer.
The right attorney will most certainly provide you an opportunity to ask any questions you may have, but be sure that you are utilizing the time to get the overall picture of the process, timeline and likely outcome of your legal matter.
If you have more questions about preparing for your consultation, please feel free to contact me directly by phone at (718) 689-2900 or email at danielle@montaltobly.com. I offer free thirty-minute consultations, which can be scheduled by phone or right on the face of my website.