All Family Law, All Around the WorldSM

Every Tom, Dick and Harry

by | Jun 2, 2020 | Divorce

Sally was sitting at home. Actually, Sally was stewing at home. She kind of felt that way a lot these days. Fred had gotten on her last nerve before the Coronavirus and being locked in the house with him for two months was finally more than she could stand. He had to go. Or she had to go. Or somebody had to go. That’s all she knew. Somebody had to go!

She was on-line anyway, reading about all the daily horrors, tragedies and outrages, she might as well use the internet for something productive. She decided to look up divorce attorneys in her area.

The response was overwhelming. It seemed that hundreds of lawyers handled divorces. Perhaps hundreds upon hundreds. They were everywhere, offering everything. “Flat Fee.” “Free Consultation.” “Lowest Hourly Rate.” There were more traditional firms, too with paid consultations, hourly billing and depth of experience and therefore a variety of rates.

Who should Sally choose? She called one of the Free Consultation ones.

“Do you do divorces,” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. We handle all kinds of cases. Criminal cases, commercial litigation, personal injury and we do divorces, too.”

“How much of your work is devoted to family law?”

“As much as we can get.”

In the lawyer world, there is a lot of talk about how many folks, stuck in their houses with spouses they haven’t liked in a long time, will be wanting a divorce. The expectation is that many, many people will be seeking a lawyer’s services to escape a no-longer good marriage. There is so much talk, there is so much expectation, that every Tom, Dick and Harry is getting into the practice.

I heard from a personal injury lawyer just the other day, “I’m hiring an attorney to handle all the family law cases that will be coming in. He can get stuck with all that crap.”

I heard from another attorney, “I usually just handle commercial litigation but there is so much money to be made off of these people that I’d be a fool not to advertise myself as a family lawyer, too.”

And of course, there are the folks that all along have done anything that comes through the door. In the industry we call that “desperation law.” They either don’t like any one thing enough or can’t be focused enough on any one area of practice that they have to take every retainer for every case that they can get, just to get by.

Sally interviewed several Johnny come lately’s. She wasn’t impressed. She wasn’t fooled, either. Sally decided she needed a firm that could protect her, that would safeguard her future, not some fly-by-night firm that was dabbling in family law for the quick score.

Sally did her homework and hired a reputable firm that had been around for a long time and had proven over the decades that they were committed and dedicated exclusively to the practice of family law. She hired a firm where every lawyer in the firm ate, drank and breathed family law. She hired a firm that knew that family law was its calling.

Sally made a very wise investment in her future.

Michael Manely 

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