Should I Use My Regular Attorney For My Divorce?
Today’s legal landscape is one of increasing specialization. Lawyers working in a particular area of the law need to be familiar with the statutes, the case law, the court rules, and even the unwritten rules in their area of practice. In some small towns, lawyers still have to be generalists because there just are not that many lawyers or that many clients, but in more populated areas attorneys serve their clients best when they focus on limited areas of the law so they can best stay current.
Family law in particular is different from other areas of the law and requires an attorney to be up on such diverse issues as property valuation and distribution (including valuation of stock options and closely held businesses), spousal maintenance standards, child support calculations and deviations, parenting plan development, same-sex marriage and registered partnerships, non-married relationships, domestic violence, and both personal and financial restraining orders.
Our focus is on family law – that is why our firm is named Seattle Divorce Services. We don’t want to try to do everything (bankruptcy, criminal law, personal injury, tax law, etc), we want to do one thing so we can do it as well as possible.
If you have a regular attorney that you have used for other kinds of legal assistance and you would like to use him or her for your divorce, be sure and ask how much family law experience they have and whether they think you might be better off using an attorney who focuses in family law.