First of all, divorce is not cheap if you don't have two willing parties that will be able to settle in mediation. 90% of all divorces end in mediation and this is what most lawyers are hoping for because they don't have trial experience. Also, there are a lot of things out of the control of your lawyer, like mediation dates and court dates because they have to be scheduled between 3 parties, the court and two lawyers. If you are early in the process, accept this now. If you know you will go to trial because your ex has no incentive to divorce, you will NOT save money, it's going to cost you. There are so many ways to lose money if your attorney is not looking at the details. You have to pay for a good lawyer that will see every angle from the opposing attorney that's designed to cost you money. Believe me, coming from someone that spent a year and ultimately went to trial, I can count over $40,000 my first lawyer (not Shawn unfortunately) cost me because he didn't look at the details of what I was order to pay my ex. This didn't count the $55,000 I ultimately paid this junior wannabee lawyer. I would have done better representing myself but more about him in a minute.
A year prior to actually filing for my divorce, Shawn spent a lot of time on the phone with me going over my options and never charged me a dime. I was so new to the process and remember thinking, $3000 retainer? Why so much? It shouldn't cost that much, should it? Shawn tried to explain to me what I was in for because there was no way my ex would ever settle. We were going to trial, no matter what and that will cost money.
When I finally decided to file, I went with a lawyer that had over 500 positive reviews on birdeye.com. I thought, wow... all those can't be wrong. Well, believe me, because someone maintains this plethora of positive reviews doesn't make them a competent lawyer. I'm convinced these have to be fake reviews because some of the documents they gave me to review looked like my 15 year old wrote them after reading Divorce Law for Dummies. I actually asked this person several times over the year if he was actually working for my ex-wife, because he certainly was not helping me AT ALL. Over $50,000 later, the $3,000 retainer was nothing. I am kicking myself for not choosing Shawn to represent me in my divorce because he would have caught all these issues as they happened.
After my divorce was finally finished, I needed to file another petition to change the verbiage around the sale of the marital home in the final divorce decree. Again, this is because my first lawyer (not Shawn) didn't "catch" this change from the opposing attorney who wrote the final decree. My old lawyer drug his feet for over 8 weeks and said I owed him $3,000 for this petition and this was before we even went to court the first time!
I fired that lawyer and called Shawn. Again, Shawn spent a long time on the phone with me and even reviewed the draft of the petition from my first lawyer. He immediately pointed out errors and offered a solution that saved me. Within a day, he had written a Petition for me to file myself. He only charged me for a couple of hours but spent well over 6 hours on the phone and researching my options for a poorly written divorce decree that my first lawyer signed off on.
Since this petition was all procedural at this point, there was no "argument" needed by lawyers. Shawn explained I didn't need to pay a lawyer travel time and court time which is usually at least 2 court dates. Shawn saved me thousands on this alone. I filed the professionally written Petition, had my ex served papers, and went to court. The judge rendered his decision and Shawn even wrote the "Order" for me to bring back to the judge for him to sign. Shawn didn't even charge me for this extra work which is unheard of for any lawyer.
Believe me, there will be no other attorney to consider if I'm ever in this situation again. If you need a divorce attorney, Shawn is the man to go to. He will be your advocate and have your best interest in mind. Something my first lawyer clearly lacked. read more