One of the most crucial questions that you can ask yourself about a divorce case in Texas is whether or not you need an attorney. Not only is hiring an attorney a significant investment for you to make, but it will also determine the course of your case in many regards. The decisions made within a divorce range from anywhere from being important for that specific day to be important for the rest of your life. The relationships you share with your children, your ability to succeed financially after your divorce, and a host of other topics are all determined during your divorce case. Having an attorney to assist you in making those determinations can significantly change the course of your case.
However, while this is all true, there is no requirement that you need to have an attorney to get divorced. Nothing in the Texas family code prohibits a person from getting a divorce without being represented by counsel. This can give some people the impression that because, in turn, it is not necessary to get divorced that being represented by one is not beneficial for that the trouble to hire a lawyer will Be too much to bother with. This is over and above D completely normal concerns regarding costs of hiring a divorce attorney and what it may mean for your budget.
From the perspective of an attorney who has practiced family law for years and has seen many people go through a divorce, I can tell you that there are valid arguments to be made on both sides. Ultimately, the decision to get divorced with or without an attorney should not only be based on your personal preference, risk tolerance, and factors such as these but also on the specific circumstances and facts of your case. Perhaps more than any other area of the law, your divorce case’s specific facts and circumstances will factor into the final decision-making. While the Texas family code is important, a family court judge would be viewing your circumstances through the lens of your life and the events that led up to your divorce.
It should go without saying that how the facts and circumstances are presented can be just as important as the relevant family codes on divorce. As much as anything else, an inexperienced family law attorney can help you to synthesize and organize those facts and circumstances in a way that can be understood by a judge and by your opposing spouse. On top of this, divorce attorneys can allow you to make better-informed decisions and plan for the future of your case. These are all benefits that even the most well-intentioned and well-researched not-turning party will not be able to match.
On the other hand, they have perfectly valid reasons why you do not want to hire a divorce attorney to represent you. We all know that most divorce attorneys charge a fee to represent you in divorce. Coming out of this pandemic, you may have many concerns in your life when it comes to your finances. Hiring a lawyer to represent you in a divorce that you do not necessarily want to get maybe the type of cost you do not want to bear. Otherwise, we may have other for the money that would have been spent on an attorney, like paying down debt or saving for retirement.
Completely unrelated to the money component, you may not want to hire A divorce attorney because you heard horror stories from friends and family about their own experiences with lawyers‘ divorce. It is one thing to pay money having an attorney represent you to help you in your divorce. It could be a different matter altogether to pay for an attorney who does not help you or who seems to hurt your case actively.
All of this is over and above the general idea that you may not need to get a divorce at all. If you and your spouse want to work on reconciliation or even pause the divorce, are you able to do that you hire an attorney? The best way to avoid getting a divorce is to work on your marital issues in the filing process altogether. Does having attorney provisions and reconciliation? If you hire A divorce attorney, are you on a fast track towards a permanent end to your marriage?
In today’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, I would like to share with you my thoughts on these subjects regarding the decision of whether or not to hire a divorce attorney for your divorce. Every day, this works with people just like you in the beginning stages of planning for divorce. Many times, folks are resistant or even hostile to the idea of hiring an attorney. Rather than pressure these folks to hire a lawyer, we attempt to share nonbiased and objective information about the doors process to allow these folks to make decisions for themselves.
I want to walk you through some of the same discussions we have with people in our office every day about divorce and how divorce can impact their lives. Additionally, I would like to share some information and perspective on how hiring an attorney can benefit you. However, I would also like to share my thoughts on whether hiring a divorce is necessary for every person who goes through a divorce. I think he will see that not all divorces are created equally. Anne hiring an attorney may not be necessary for your divorce.
What should you be thinking about when it comes to hiring a divorce attorney?
If you are reading this blog post, then I assume that you are considering divorce. This can not be an easy position today, and it is likely the subject of a great deal of thought. However, I would strongly recommend that you consider divorce if you attempt to reconcile with your spouse before taking any steps to move forward with a separation or formal divorce. Texas does not recognize legal separations like many states. As a result, simply moving out of the house and declaring yourself separated from your spouse has no legal impact on your marriage status. If you are in this situation that you should know that you and your spouse are still legally married as if you were still living together.
With that said, you have an opportunity to take into account state marriage, and two determine whether or not you need to get a divorce. The need to get a divorce may have been one that you have been asking yourself about for weeks, months, or even years. I ask people in consultation with our office whether or not they have considered talking to an attorney about whether to get divorced. I do not mean this as a joke. Here is why I think a family law attorney could be a great resource for you to determine whether or not a divorce is something to consider in your life.
An honest divorce attorney will share a perspective with you, but you would not be able to get on your own. If you find yourself wrestling with the same questions repeatedly about whether or not to get a divorce, this should not surprise you. Unless you allow new inputs into the conversation, you will likely be left with the same answers you’ve been given repeatedly. Therefore it is of value to you to introduce different points to have experience in matters related to divorce to help you identify whether or not getting a divorce could be in your best interest.
Although divorce attorneys make a living, I’m helping people get divorced; we can also provide you with context and information regarding your circumstances and whether divorce may not be necessary. The fact is that divorce attorneys see every type of person walk through their office and get divorced every day. There is no one specific type of person who gets divorced. These days, everyone is getting divorced. However, that does not mean that a divorce is right for you. A short consultation with an experienced family locked in can help you pinpoint areas in your marriage that may need work that you could work on outside of a divorce context.
By the same token, a divorce attorney can also help you to determine when your marriage may be at the point where divorce is necessary or nearly inevitable. For example, if you and your spouse have been going through therapy for years and years with no resolution to your problem, then this may be a sign that adds divorce should be filed sooner rather than later. There is nothing wrong with attempting to salvage a marriage as long as both parties are invested in the reclamation project. However, when it becomes clear that the attempts to salvage the marriage have not been successful, there is also nothing wrong with exploring your options regarding a divorce.
Either way, speaking with an experienced divorce attorney can be helpful when it comes to figuring out how it went to proceed with getting divorced. This may seem redundant or silly to say, but those who have been through a divorce understand just how important it is to be intentional and have a well-developed plan for moving forward. You do not want to move forward with the divorce prematurely and find that a reconciliation opportunity is still possible. By the same token, you do not want to move forward too late with the divorce after harm has been done in a physical, emotional, or financial sense. An experienced divorce attorney can help you differentiate between the two situations and help you to move forward more confidently in whichever direction is best for you and your spouse.
Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to a divorce attorney being necessary for your case?
A rule of thumb is a shortcut to helping people make decisions for their lives. The shortcut will allow you to bypass complex and complicated ways of thinking and arrive at solutions more readily. There is nothing wrong with shortcuts. I think we’ve all relied upon a shortcut more than once in our lives, whether it be in school, driving in the car, or any other aspect of our lives. Whether or not a shortcut like this can be applied to something like getting a divorce.
The reality is there is no simple test for you to perform to determine whether or not a divorce is necessary or that an attorney is not necessary. The best I can do is cut down on the noise you may be hearing from other people and divide up divorces into two extensive categories. The first category is a divorce that does not involve minor children or property and the second category is a divorce that involves either of those. To me, this is the best we can do as far as attempting to create a bright line to distinguish between cases where you need a divorce attorney to succeed and the sort of divorce where a divorce attorney may not be necessary.
If you have minor children who are a part of your divorce, I think this is probably the most important circumstance to consider hiring an attorney. Different people place different levels of importance on different issues in a divorce. However, I can almost always say that parents of minor children emphasize issues relating to their kids in a divorce. This is not surprising. A divorce can have far-reaching effects on your finances regarding your children and, most importantly, your relationship with your children.
With so much hanging in the balance in a divorce regarding your kids, I would not recommend taking any chances regarding your case. Hiring a divorce attorney does not necessarily guarantee you anything. Still, it provides you with a level of experience regarding negotiating with your spouse on issues like child custody, conservatorships issues, child support, and any other subject related to your children. Deciding to forego an attorney in a divorce with young children can prove to be a bad decision in the long run.
Additionally, if you have a significant amount of property at stake in your divorce, I think it is advisable to have an attorney represent you. So this is over and above whether or not you have minor children also at stake in the divorce. You have worked hard to build a life for yourself and to accumulate assets and property. You need to be concerned with how your property is going to be divided. Still, you also need to be concerned with the different ways that Community property laws in Texas impact that division process.
The subject of Community property underlies every issue regarding property near divorce. Even if you are somewhat familiar with the basic concepts of Community property in Texas, you have likely never spent time using those concepts to divide up property in a divorce. If you consider the emotional aspects of your divorce on top of these issues, it is probably wise to consider hiring a divorce attorney for your case.
However, if you have no minor children in your divorce and no property of any value to divide, you may be able to consider not hiring an attorney. The fact is that divorces with no property and no minor children have less at stake than divorces with either of these scenarios within them. As a result, you may be able to work your way through the issues of your case without hiring a lawyer. There are online divorced manuals, a blog post from our law office, and law libraries in major metropolitan areas where you can learn enough about the divorce process to figure out how to get divorced on your own probably. Even if you make a mistake here or there, those mistakes will not cost you as much as a person who has a significant amount of property or children at stake in the divorce.
However, this does not get into how proceeding with your divorce can take time and resources away from other areas of your life. Additionally, mistakes take up time but can cost money, and that you may have to re-file documents or even re-file your divorce if you miss certain deadlines. Therefore, even those of you with circumstances that do not involve minor children or a significant amount of property can still benefit from hiring an experienced divorce attorney to assist you.
Questions about the material contained in today’s blog post? Contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan
if you have any questions about the material contained in today’s blog postcontact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan. Our licensed family law attorneys offer free-of-charge consultation six days a week in person over the phone. Via video, these consultations can be a great way for you to learn more about the world of Texas family law and how your family circumstances may change after the filing of a divorce or child custody case.
Bryan Fagan, a native of Atascocita, Texas, is a dedicated family law attorney inspired by John Grisham’s “The Pelican Brief.” He is the first lawyer in his family, which includes two adopted brothers. Bryan’s commitment to family is personal and professional; he cared for his grandmother with Alzheimer’s while completing his degree and attended the South Texas College of Law at night.
Married with three children, Bryan’s personal experiences enrich his understanding of family dynamics, which is central to his legal practice. He specializes in family law, offering innovative and efficient legal services. A certified member of the College of the State Bar of Texas, Bryan is part of an elite group of legal professionals committed to ongoing education and high-level expertise.
His legal practice covers divorce, custody disputes, property disputes, adoption, paternity, and mediation. Bryan is also experienced in drafting marital property agreements. He leads a team dedicated to complex family law cases and protecting families from false CPS allegations.
Based in Houston, Bryan is active in the Houston Family Law Sector of the Houston Bar Association and various family law groups in Texas. His deep understanding of family values and his professional dedication make him a compassionate advocate for families navigating Texas family law.
