How to Obtain Limited-Scope Legal Assistance for Your Divorce

If you are seeking true, unbundled legal representation for your divorce, your best bet may not be the storefront legal office that promises to take you through the process for anywhere from $99 to $399. At such offices, you'll often end up working with a paralegal who can fill out forms for you and file appropriate court documents, but who is not geared to offer specific, complex advice.

Likewise, websites offering inexpensive divorces are often staffed by paralegals filling out state divorce forms. If they give advice, it may be nothing more than a loss leader for continued services that end up being far more costly. One credible and helpful site we know offers a consultation session geared to your state for $34.95, without a specific time limit. For a yearly subscription fee of $89, you will be referred to attorneys in your area who, thereafter, charge $89 an hour. But remember, referral by your local Bar Association or self-help center is free.

In fact, although such options can yield appropriate legal feedback, we suggest you start your search for limited-scope legal representation offline, in the same place you would go for guidance as a litigant—the pro se assistance programs now available in jurisdictions across the United States. These centers, often state-sponsored and associated with the courts, can provide forms, videos, brochures, and general legal information, but you'll sometimes find attorneys working there and willing to provide advice. If the assistance program can't help you, they frequently can refer you to attorneys willing to help, one issue at a time.

If you aren't satisfied or if these attorneys charge too much, contact your local Bar Association to see if you can tap what's known as the “reduced fee panel,” whose members charge for legal services based on income. Some won't handle divorce cases, but many do. If none of these venues helps you turn up your limited-scope attorney, you might check out the profiles approved by the group who coordinated the 2000 National Conference on Unbundled Legal Services, which you can find at www.unbundledlaw.org. You might also check out unbundled resources at the American Bar Association website, at www.abanet.org.

As you search for a limited-scope divorce attorney, remember that this is a specialty, just like any other area of law. Sure, you could go to the highest-powered divorce firm in your city and request services à la carte, but that is unlikely to do you much good. Full-service divorce attorneys won't be seduced by the few hundred or couple thousand dollars you can part with to manage your marital woes. Even if they made an exception for you, they wouldn't be accustomed to delivering what you need. Likewise, storefront legal offices that function as “paralegal paper mills” are likely to consider your request to focus on an outside-the-box or individual issue a disruption to the workflow. Instead, seek out an attorney who specializes in unbundled divorce—the kind of lawyer who handles family law as a solo practitioner, or as part of a small firm, who has recently decided to join the growing contingent of attorneys selling divorce services à la carte.

The Limited-Scope Consult

Popular perception has it that an initial consultation with a divorce attorney is merely an opportunity to learn about fees and services. But Debbie Weecks, a limited-scope attorney from Sun City, Arizona, says there's no reason why the initial consultation can't “be several hours long with an express understanding that the attorney's role is limited to offering advice both procedurally and substantively based upon the information the client is able to provide.”

The initial divorce consultation might be all you need to get through the rest of the divorce procedure on your own. “Interview and advice services may be the only ones a limited-service lawyer provides to a client,” according to the American Bar Association. “The attorney-client relationship begins at the start of the interview and ends when it is over.” In other words, the interview and advice (as opposed to mere information) comprise a discrete unit of legal work. While full-service attorneys often provide the initial consultation for free, as just the beginning of a long relationship, limited-scope lawyers virtually always charge at this point—it is often the first and last time the client will walk through the door.

The limitedservice lawyer could, for instance, give you preventive advice. Let's say you anticipate a custody battle and fear your spouse might run off with your child; in a single session with a knowledgeable attorney, you might learn how to file a motion requesting an emergency custody order and a requirement for your spouse to turn over his or her passport. Even if you have no money, you might be surprised how much emotional and financial risk you face when your marriage ends. A limited-scope attorney will keep you informed: Do you know how to protect your credit rating, not to mention your level of future debt, from a spouse on a spending spree? Are you aware that if you use your newly inherited money—no matter how small the amount—to pay household bills or if you combine it with marital monies in any way, it might become community property in some states?

Perhaps you are furious because your spouse is preventing you from seeing your daughter or son? A common assumption is that visitation is somehow tied to child support payments—no kid on Sunday, no money for your soon-to-be ex on Monday, regardless of what the judge ordered. The limited-scope attorney will quickly set you straight, letting you know in no uncertain terms that those issues are generally unrelated under the law, but by withholding payment, you risk not just child-support arrearages but criminal charges as well. On the other hand, if you continue to make the payments, you can correct the visitation situation pro se—with the attorney's behind-the-scenes advice.

In fact, if your rights are being violated in any way, the limited-service lawyer can tell you how to select and complete a simplified complaint form, request an order of default or evidentiary hearing, prepare and present the required testimony, and obtain a final order and judgment. Believe it or not, if your issues aren't outrageously tangled and messy, all of this can be accomplished in a single session, in the course of an afternoon. Depending on your city, you might be asked to pay the limited-scope attorney up to $250 an hour for his legal advice. This may sound like a lot, but the savings—not just in money but also heartache—could be immense.

Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Surviving Divorce © 2002 by BookEnds, LLC. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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