How to Find Legal Aid in A Divorce
Marriage is a common and time-honored institution among adults around the world, but the unfortunate truth is that sometimes, these marriages will come to a legal end, known as divorce. In modern American law, divorce is a well-known procedure that has created an entire industry of family law attorneys, divorce lawyers, and more, and a divorce law firm may never be far away if a spouse wants to file for a divorce or protect themselves if their spouse is doing such a thing to them. A divorce law firm will be home to numerous lawyers who specialize in family law and the laws surrounding marriage and the end thereof, and a client who visits a divorce law firm can get legal aid to promote their side of a divorce legally and fairly. How often do Americans files for divorce today, and why? What can be done to start a divorce or protect oneself from divorce filings?
Why Americans Divorce
A number of factors may end a marriage. The Journal of Family Issues conducted a study and concluded that infidelity was the leading cause of divorce today, when one spouse acts unfaithfully to the other. Other major causes of divorce include drug or alcohol abuse, resentfully different lifestyles, future plans, or spending habits, or simply a lack of personal compatibility. Often, a marriage’s ending may be predicted based on the two people’s behavior before getting engaged. It has been demonstrated that couples who dates for three or more years before getting engaged were much less likely to divorce than those who dated for one year or less. This longer time together gives both people a chance to test their compatibility in terms of lifestyle, future plans, and spending, and anything else that they may need to determine if they belong together. A marriage may also suffer and lead to divorce if one spouse is violent or verbally abusive to the other or to their kids, or even if they just threaten violence.
Carrying out the Divorce
A couple may become legally separated (but still married) or go through a total divorce if one spouse feels the need to terminate that marriage. Two out of three of those who file for divorce are women, and in any case, filing for divorce sometimes leads to reorganized living arrangement. This may be especially common if the other spouse is abusing drugs or alcohol or committing violence or threatening to do so, and this may prompt the other spouse to relocate themselves (and bring their under-18 kids them) to another, private residence that the other spouse will not know where to find. This can lend the divorce filer a sense of privacy and safety during the divorce, and the filer may act primarily through their attorney when it comes to interacting with the other spouse or their legal defense during the divorce procedure.
Someone filing for divorce will probably want legal aid to make sure that the procedure is done legally and correctly, and to navigate divorce court correctly. For this reason, someone intending to file for divorce may look up a local divorce law firm, or several of them, and consultations from the lawyers who work there (this may or may not incur a fee). The spouse looking for a divorce can choose a lawyer whose experience, skills, and success rate (and possibly their personality) are to the client’s liking, and they can make their case together. It may be likely that the other spouse will find a divorce law firm and get their own representation, and these two lawyers will negotiate on each of their clients’ behalf for possession of assets such as money or a house, and child custody, too. A family lawyer may be involved where he custody of under-18 children is concerned. The two lawyers, and any other representatives involved, may negotiate other terms of the divorce such as possible restraining orders or settlement on who will live where, and how future income will be used, such as child support or alimony. These matters and others will be covered in the divorce court until a final resolution is reached that everyone can agree upon.
