My Search For a Divorce Lawyer
Guest post by Ellen R
When you’re in the middle of a marital crisis, the last thing you need is to hunt for the right divorce attorney. My husband and I had separated and were exchanging terse emails, and I felt traumatized and not up to much of anything let alone Googling and asking friends (when I was embarrassed to even admit I was in this place). I called a lawyer friend and she gave me a few names. I went to their websites and entered contact information and we set up a call. I was first shocked at the hourly rate – she had given me the names of some of the top lawyers in the city – and the questions. What was our net worth? Did my husband have a personality disorder? Could I pay $10,000 for a retainer…today? One lawyer I talked to told me I was about to have a $90,000 lesson and I should think of it like paying for a college degree…NOT what I wanted to hear. A loan I’d made my husband would have to be written off, he said.
Finally I found a great lawyer through a friend with a reasonable hourly rate who seemed to have my interests and not his check in mind. Carefully, over several months, he corresponded with my husband and his lawyer and established a rapport with them, and then crafted a win for me. He practiced what is known as collaborative law, which is a low-tension form of working with opposing counsel to find the best resolution. A ‘win’ in divorce is of course not really a win, but it allowed me to keep my house and for my husband to make payments on the loan. This could never have been achieved in a fighting mode which would have caused them to dig in, but collaboratively, my lawyer was able to pose scenarios and fight for integrity through the process, appealing to fairness and he succeeded.
The lawyer you want to choose uses whatever method will yield the best results for his clients. He is able to work collaboratively with the other counsel and, if need be, to fight a battle, but his approach is based on his assessment of what will be most productive. Productive is key. Emotions are so cranked up that it’s easy to get stuck in them, and miss possibilities for solutions. David Heiman doesn’t miss those opportunities and working with him will dial down the stress when you experience his positive attitude.
On a personal level, David is warm and intelligent and truly cares about his clients’ difficulties and seeks to ease them through any legal channel he can. I highly recommend his services wherever you are in the Dallas area; it’s worth it to travel to his office in Lewisville.