How Do I Choose an Arizona Family Law Attorney?

As the best family law lawyers in Arizona we often get asked, “how do I choose an Arizona family law attorney?” One of the most important things you can do when you’re contemplating a divorce or a child custody issue that you may need to go into court is to find the right attorney for you. Most of the clients that I meet with have never dealt with an attorney before. They come into my office, they’re worried, and they don’t know how to proceed and so having the right attorney is so important. But oftentimes, because they’ve never gone to court before or had to have an attorney before, they don’t know what to look for. So let me provide a little bit of advice on what to look for when you’re seeking an attorney for a family law situation. You want an attorney who, first and foremost, is gonna listen to you and understand what’s going on in your life.

I try not to come in with any preconceived notions as to what is the best route for a case, because your case may be different than the last case I dealt with. You have your specific needs and I want to understand what you need. The other thing that is very important to understand is attorneys wear multiple hats. Most people think of an attorney as, “I want somebody who’s going to go and fight for me in court.” And absolutely, that is an important attribute of an attorney, and we here at Genesis Family Law and Divorce Lawyers are great at fighting for what our clients need in court, but that’s not the only hat we wear. The other hat, just as important, is we advise our clients. And this, arguably, could be even more important because when you come into our office, you’re worried, you’re dealing with some situation in which you have never dealt before, and you don’t know how the family law is. You don’t know what the judges typically do.

How Can A Family Law Attorney Help?

A family law attorney needs to sit down and advise you. Where are the strengths and weaknesses of your case? Because if you come into an attorney and an attorney only tells you what you wanna hear, the attorney has actually done you a huge disservice. Yes, you may hire that attorney and you may feel like, “Oh, I’ve got a wonderful case.” But you’re not really looking at your case honestly. You’re not saying, “Hey, I’ve got some weaknesses here.” And if you understand the weaknesses of your case, it will allow you to gather additional evidence so that we can make better arguments or it will also allow you to perhaps take a slightly different angle. Sometimes you want to litigate and go for everything, and that’s great. And sometimes it’s important to understand that Arizona property law is not going to give you a hundred percent of the house or one hundred percent of all of the retirement accounts. And if you understand that upfront, you can avoid spending a lot of money on attorneys and going into court to fight something that you’re just not going to win. Or you may understand that “I need to know when I started their retirement account. When did it end? What was the community portion of this?” And when you understand all that, it will give you more information so that you can gather your evidence and we together, can go work on your case.

You also want to make sure that your attorney is being honest with you. You want to make sure that your attorney and you are on the same page- we offer a consultation at a reduced hourly rate so that our clients can feel comfortable to come down, sit down with us and understand what specifically we offer, what they need, and then we can decide if it’s a good fit for you and for us. So please give us a call and schedule a reduced price consultation, so we can sit down, go over your case, talk about it honestly and determine if we are a great fit for what you need. Thank you.

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