Divorce cases are unique. They can be emotionally gut wrenching litigation. An attorney representing you in a divorce case should be communicative and experienced with regard to divorce law. In addition he or she should be someone you have faith in. You will be forced to rely on your divorce lawyer should your case become acrimonious. Your divorce lawyer will make suggestions with regard to settlement, negotiating tactics, and present opinions to you concerning child custody, child support, equitable distribution of the marital assets, and a variety of other issues in your divorce case. So what do you do if you become unhappy or disenchanted with your lawyer? You can meet with your attorney and express your concerns and try to get your relationship back on the right track. What do you do if that doesn’t work? Sometimes, you simply need to change lawyers.
Hiring a New Divorce Attorney
If you are not comfortable with the way your case is going, or the way your family law attorney is handling your case, you should look for the best available attorney to represent you. Individuals usually find it difficult to express their unhappiness to the level of firing their lawyer. But this is not necessary in the State of New York. There are specific procedures in place with regard to changing attorneys. When you hire a new lawyer, it is the new lawyer’s responsibility to make arrangements to obtain the file and to notify the prior attorney that he or she has been retained in their place.
When our office is retained by a client who already has an existing attorney, one of the first things we do is to contact the prior attorney and discuss the matter with him or her. We can review court records, materials the client brings to us and we make arrangements to obtain the file from the prior attorney. We then lay out a strategy and set up a game plan as how to effectuate this strategy. We aggressively pick up the case where the other attorney left off.
Contact With Clients
One of the mainstays of how our law office operates is that we understand we are in the service business. For that reason, our phones are monitored 7 days a week. Our attorneys return calls during business hours, after business hours, and on weekends. We take our responsibility to our clients seriously and we do whatever is reasonable to deliver for our clients and protect their rights.
Should you be unhappy with your present lawyer, call us to discuss your case. We offer free consultations. Our office numbers are 1-800-344-6431, 516-561-6645, and 718-350-2802.