If you are searching for an experienced (and hopefully not "aggressive", as I will explain below) Seattle
divorce attorney, you need to bear in mind a few fundamental points about attorneys and legal knowledge in
general. First of all, there is no such thing as a good divorce attorney who has not been practicing less than five years.
Family Court Hearings in King, Snohomish and Pierce Counties:
Total # of Divorce Cases All Types: About 500
Litigated Divorce Court Hearings: 300+ (note: one individual case might have 2-3 hearings)
Custody & Child-Support: 200+
Property Alimony: 100+
Contempt of Parenting Plan: 70+
Uncontested Washington Divorce cases: 200+
If you have an
agreed divorce, I have a system for handling them for flat
fees which results in a
fast, inexpensive, yet professional divorce.
I have actually lost track of the number of court hearings but above is a conservative
minimum that I have handled. This does not even include 15+ long, drawn-out
trials, a number
of which have lasted over a week. In a trial you are in Court from 9 am
until 5 pm, every day, until it ends. Court Hearings for custody,
child-support etc. usually last an hour. I have done over 300 Court hearings
and various other motions for every type of relief in contested divorce and custody
cases. You need a divorce attorney who is confident, but aggressive lawyers use up
their own client's funds on useless tasks. They exacerbate an already bad situation, and I
think they give the Judges and Family Court Commissioners ulcers. I will stand put, if you
are not being treated fairly. You can bank on that. But I try to keep in mind both the needs
of the overall system, as well as the funds you have available to fully develop and flesh out
your case.
Sometimes I look at a case after the first Court hearing, and just know:
this case is going to require further and longer hearings and testimony from witnesses to uncover
what is truly best for the child. But that may mean a trial. And that is not inexpensive.
An aggressive divorce attorney may end up convincing the Court that you should pay the other sides's attorney
fees because so much of the pre-trial discovery and motions were unnecessary given
the circumstances of your particular case or the facts at issue. Will an inexperienced lawyer
know how the Judge's treat these subtle issues? Hire a Seattle divorce attorney to handle your case tactfully
yet forcefully.
I have lost track of the number of uncontested divorces I have processed for a flat
fee, quickly, and without a Court appearance, over the last 10 years. However, it
is in the hundreds. I have that process down to a science and I can quickly
put an end to a difficult situation if both parties will sign off on the documents
I prepare.
A "divorce lawyer" as such handles all matters relating to family law: child support,
custody, domestic violence restraining orders, and sometimes I handle DV criminal
charges as well when the client has children, property division, alimony, changing
child support, paternity and genetic testing, suing the other side if they don't
make good on financial obligations etc.. Sometimes I just counsel people,
but usually I file motions or go to Court for people. I also have the process
of handling uncontested divorces down to a science and with me you avoid a court
hearing. I like to answer people's initial questions up front, for free.
So please give me a call. I probably charge one of the lowest sets of fees
of any Seattle Divorce Attorney with comparable experience. Normally I charge less for a good
deal more experience. I am astounded sometimes at the long drawn out hourly bills that some
of my colleagues charge for routine matters that my software system does without thinking. You
charge divorce attorney rates of $200 per hour for assembling a file and chatting about those
simple matters? Over 11 years, I have seen the bills of many a Seattle Divorce attorney and law firm and
normally you will pay far more with others and I wonder sometimes at the amount of time those people
spend speaking with their divorce attorney or attorney staff. So you pay lawyer fees and spend your own time
dealing with lawyer staff and parking downtown. I won't say another word. But if you've read this far, you
want to save $2000 on a $400-500 project. (Lawyers don't have projects by the way: we call them "issues".)
In addition to Seattle I practice washington divorce law in all counties in the greater puget sound area
but focus on King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties.
Also, my undergraduate degree was in Mandarin Chinese at the University of Washington (美国西雅图律师). Although not quite a
hobby, I enjoy it in my work as a lawyer as though it we're. Intellectual resourcefulness is what my favorite first
year law professor used to say to us. I try to bring my knowledge of this skill, and others such as a strong knowledge from
childhood of computer programming, to do things for today's divorce clients such as, recalling an example a
very practical example: subpoenas to internet email box/address providers such as hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail. I've successfully
obtained data I might not have fully understood (let alone the threshhold question noticing it's particular legal-availability
in this set of client's circumstances).
To learn more about me please
click here.