Getting Help With Your Divorce

Seeking Alimony? Here's What To Ask Potential Lawyers

If you're seeking alimony while getting divorced, it's important to hire an experienced lawyer who specializes in the process to represent you and maximize your chance of being awarded a fair monthly payment. Scheduling consultations with a few potential alimony attorneys is an excellent way to find the right representative for your needs before committing to hiring someone. Here are a few questions you can add to a list of your own that should help you gain some insight into what you can expect from each potential lawyer:

What About Mediation?

If you still have a decent relationship with your spouse, you may be able to benefit from mediation services when hashing out alimony payment arrangements. Because alimony rulings can depend on things like child custody and income, you'll likely discuss these things during mediation too, which can help make the divorce process less stressful and time-consuming. Overall, mediation tends to be more cost effective than litigation too. It's a good idea to ask potential alimony attorneys whether or not they are willing to represent you in mediation and how much experience they have with the process.

Will Ongoing Issues Be Addressed?

There is a chance that your soon to be ex-spouse will try to make changes to your alimony arrangement as time goes on, or that you'll want to make a few changes yourself. Whether it's to change the payment type amount or schedule, it's important to make sure that the lawyer you choose to hire is willing to keep your file stored in their database so they can maintain familiarity with your case and be ready to effectively represent you if you end up having to go back to court at a later date.

Who Will Be Handling the Case from Beginning to End?

It's essential to have a clear understanding of who will be working on your alimony case from beginning to end, so at your consultation meetings ask the lawyers you talk with to provide you with a list of their support team members who will have anything to do with your case. Who will be helping to negotiate a fair monthly payment plan with your spouse's legal team? Who will do all of the follow-ups that need to be handled as the case progresses? Along with names, each potential alimony attorney should be able to give you a list of credentials for each team member, so you know what kind of overall legal experience they have and how many alimony cases they've previously worked on.

With the questions answered, you should be able to determine which of the potential alimony lawyers you consult with is most likely to meet your specific needs throughout your divorce.  


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