Hello everyone. It’s Chris, Pritt back again with a new topic in West Virginia divorce. Today we’re going to be talking about whether you should file your petition for divorce on your own.
There are advantages and disadvantages to doing this, so let’s start with the advantages. One of the advantages, at least at the beginning is that you are potentially going to save on attorney fees. You don’t have to pay an upfront retainer. You can just go into court and you can just take your chances as to what the judge is going to do. It’s possible that works out to your benefit. It’s also certainly possible that it doesn’t. However, one of the most common advantages is you can potentially save money.
Now let’s talk about some of the disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that the court system oftentimes moves slower for people who are representing themselves. I can tell you that with most judges that I work with regularly if I can come up with an agreement, and because of my relationship with the judges, sometimes I can get in a little bit quicker with the judges than a person who is representing themselves. The reason for that is because the courts know that it’s likely to be an airtight agreement where all of the kinks have been worked out. So that’s one of the potential advantages if you hire an attorney.
Another potential advantage of having an attorney is that more than likely you are not going to have potential issues in the future. I’ll use this as an example, let’s say that one or both of you have not disclosed a piece of property. That can often be used as a basis for the entire case to be opened up going into the future. Other things can happen that could throw some kinks in there. These kinks may put you back in court in the future if things aren’t done right. So, you might be divorced, but you could still be going back and dealing with issues that you didn’t necessarily anticipate going into the divorce.
The third advantage to having an attorney is simply to get what you’re entitled to at the end of the day. What you can probably expect is that most of the judges are going to do something within the bounds of the law. Now, as we’ve talked about in other videos, courts have what we call discretion in particular family court cases. However, you can count on a high likelihood that the judge is going to do something that’s within the bounds of what the law is when it comes to property, children, and so forth. So that’s the other advantage. You get your day in court and you get to make sure that you get what you are entitled to. It might not always be what you like or want, but it’s most likely going to be what you’re entitled to. So that’s another advantage of hiring an attorney. It’s more likely to happen when you have one.
That consists of today’s topic. If you have any questions at all, feel free to give us a call at (304) 720 4412 or email us at chris@prittlaw.com.
