I am very proud to say that I am not a contested divorce attorney. I have done a lot divorces in the past. I do not like them. I hate everything about nasty divorces, and it is just not worth it to me to do a contested divorce and especially to do a contested child custody matter. I am very blessed that my personal injury, bankruptcy and immigration practices are very strong. As such, I can pick and choose what I do, and I choose not to do contested divorces.
However, I have seen and heard the horror stories about what happens when the wrong lawyers get their hands on divorcing couples. In divorce, there is often a lot of emotion. It is very easy to have the divorce blowup into a big case with big, big attorney’s fees. I worry sometimes that not all divorce lawyers have a problem with that. However, it is the very rare case where all of that legal work benefits somebody. Remember, divorce is largely a zero-sum game. That is to say, the assets that we are divvying up usually do not change (at least not for the better). Only the distribution of those assets changes. To the extent that the distribution is shifting more towards the lawyers that automatically means the clients are getting less. What is more, since all one party to the divorce can do is take something from the other party, the decision by the parties to fight must be a joint loss.
Although, I do not like contested divorces, and refuse to do them, I am very happy to help with uncontested divorces, and to help parties to come to a quick and amicable resolution of their divorce issues. I encourage people before they even come see me to talk to their spouse and see if there is any meeting of the minds to be had. People are welcome to come see me to talk about what their rights are, so that they can have an intelligent conversation with their spouse about trying to work things out. I have found that in most cases not involving children, there usually is not that much to fight about. As such, reasonable people should be able to come to a meeting of the minds and get through the divorce with relatively little upset, aggravation and expense. Even where children are involved, there is usually an agreement on custody. In most cases, issues of visitation should be relatively easy to work out. Child support is subject to a mathematical guideline. As such, people who are thinking about getting divorced, but who do not really want to get into a big fight over it, would do well to see a lawyer such as myself who will refuse your case if it turns out you and your spouse are going to fight. I will be more than happy to try to put an agreement on paper, file it and take you to court and get you divorced without too much aggravation and expense.