Is it me or are most of these divorce attorneys lazy and guiding male clients towards accepting bad divorce settlements?

serenehaze350 · 2025-06-21T23:12:25+00:00

Wait a second, I was told in a consultation that since my income is all that supports the family I will have to pay him alimony when we get divorced. I have been used financially for years and he still doesn't bring in an income.I had to claim bankruptcy to save house .I am an RN and my salary is all we have family of 5 adults. My kids are 21,23 and a son who is 27 with developmental disabilities. They all stay home while I work and do double shifts. How is this fair?

pk2at · 2025-06-10T15:59:21+00:00

The entire family court racket is setup to loot men during divorce. The lawyer is definitely a cog in this wheel. The only advice he can give is to disclose all your assets and pray you get back 50% and not get looted again during CS and alimony hearings. If you are looking for good advice and looking to see how to keep the money you earned during marriage, you need to look outside the system. I have provided several examples in my previous posts over the years on how you can do so. Asset protection, crypto, trusts, gifts etc. are some areas you can explore. They don't address divorce laws directly but provide insights into how you operate using loopholes during financial transactions. These loopholes can also be used very effectively during divorce (despite some weak attempts to legislate them out)

ec20 · 2025-06-08T15:42:22+00:00

I'm an attorney (not divorce law) but I've been divorced.

A lot of people get upset and think their attorney isn't a "fighter" but generally the actual problem is that the attorney knows what can be realistically expected and their client expects way more than is realistic.

If anything the attorney has incentive to fight and run up your bill needlessly. A good attorney will try to get you to resolution while trying to keep your bills low.

Unusual_University14 · 2025-06-08T15:41:46+00:00

Divorces can either be settled or litigated in court. When litigated in court, judges tend to go for "default rules" (which vary depending on where you are). What that often means is you can throw $200k at it and end up exactly at default rules. Especially if you're the dad, its a REAL high bar to get them to deviate. Judges don't want to figure out where the kids are on Friday night. Or who gets to play soccer.

Did your ex cheat and decide to blow up the family? No one cares.

Did you work all the overtime you could, rocked your career, and built a solid financial foundation for your family while the ex stayed home with the kids? No one cares.

A good lawyer will see your case and the issues and hopefully say something like "given these patterns of facts and what we can prove, the most likely outcome of the case is X and it could cost up to Y to get there... if you settle now, you'll get Z." That way you can do the math between X and Z and see if its worth Y to spend on.

Many divorces drag out not because of any meaningful legal outcome but because people are working out the emotional damage of their breakup in litigation... a good lawyer knows that and will resist letting you do it. A bad lawyer will take all your money knowing it won't change any outcome for you and get rich.

See: https://www.custodyxchange.com/topics/research/dads-custody-time-by-state.php

Geluxenailz · 2025-06-08T07:46:34+00:00

This is so true my brothers ex wife embezzled 50k from his business before they split and forged his signature that he agreed on 12k alimony and he’s already paid 30k to his attorney that hasn’t done a single thing. The attorney even brought up her personal life to my brother, to let him know what she’s been going through. I just can’t believe it, wrong is wrong but in California I guess the law does not matter?

Bulky-Percentage-243 · 2025-06-08T05:56:27+00:00

My first lawyer punched numbers into the calculators and told me that's what I'd get. I felt like I had a lot that would help my case. Didn't matter he said. He shot down every idea.

Second lawyer listened. But I had to do about 75% of the work. I did get some good tips and advice. But otherwise my lawyer wasn't good for much. He was perhaps best at being an inverse ATM.

Turned out to be a good investment. We got alimony off the table in CA.

That's my own biggest complaint about the judicial system. You shouldn't be able to create both these outcomes with the same exact case.

reapersritehand · 2025-06-08T05:39:32+00:00

I wouldn't say they're guiding men to accept bad deals, tho some are both doing that and are lazy, but from what I've seen (especially in like smaller area settings) all these lawyers kno each other and the judges, so they've seen this play out hundreds of times in kinda a "look homie if you don't accept this shitty deal and we get in front of judge x it's gonna be a lot shitter"

ShaunyP_OKC · 2025-06-08T03:06:20+00:00

I had a cheater ex wife that outearned me 4 to 1 and I stomped her in divorce. You guys need to stop believing the bullshit you read on the internet. You don't have to hire these shit attorneys.

Also, I hired a woman attorney. I don't know if it had an effect, but my ex sure was more quiet and hung her head lower in her presence than mine. You gotta fight to win and stop assuming you're just going to get bent over. You think your stbxw isn't playing to win? Think again.

Jake_Barnes_ · 2025-06-08T02:55:08+00:00

I can tell you from my last couple trials that men are not only getting bad mediation settlements but are also getting bad judgments from trial too. In my last 3 divorce trials I have had 2 go my way and 1 didn’t…. And I represented the wife on both wins and husband on the loss. Of course I’m biased, but we didn’t lose that one on account of a lack of effort or skill from me.

My position is to try and tell guys what I realistically think their best day in court is and what their worst would be so we can walk into mediation with that in the back of our minds.

I was just in one with a guy who just outright refuses to split any equity in his house with his wife. They are in their 60s, both second marriages, no kids together, and married 8 years ago. He bought the house in cash 10 years ago in full with no mortgage and it’s still in his name only. She moved in when they married and has been there ever since. I told him even on his best day at trial he’s going to have to buy her out at at the very best 25% of the houses value, but that most likely it’ll be ordered to be sold and proceeds split evenly, or he can just make a payment to her representing 50% of its value.

He won’t budge on the issue. So we didn’t settle in mediation, and that is fine by me. I’m only going to make more money if cases don’t settle. But I told him clearly I think he’s chasing something that won’t happen.

First-Sail8421 · 2025-06-08T02:35:09+00:00

I agree they are not aggressive. They use a standard playbook and profit handsomely off it. No need to rock the boat. Very disappointing.

MammothResolve9628 · 2025-06-08T02:27:39+00:00

I ran into the issue of being completely unaware of how legal representation works in a divorce. For all the bad stuff I can say about my ex, she and I are lucky that neither of us is trying to drag out the divorce longer than it needs to be by nitpicking the material stuff.

We have both contributed pretty equally throughout the marriage, maybe slightly more so for me, but not enough to hire an attorney. We were able to have someone prepare our documents with how we wanted things split and file ourselves for a fraction of what it would have cost us to hire attorneys.

Before starting this process, I (naively) thought we could both use the same attorney to represent both of us. Looking back on it now, I see how foolish that sounds. When I finally figured out that wasn’t possible, I told her she was free to do what she wanted but that I was willing to put in the legwork myself to get all the necessary documents and contact a paralegal to help with the preparation. There was absolutely zero chance I would have given a dime to those scum-of-the-earth misery profiteers. We ended up splitting the cost, but I would have gladly paid it all myself because it still would have been saving me the thousands of dollars.

For as much as the US legal system stacks the odds against men/dads, it is even worse for anyone struggling financially. There is absolutely no reason splitting from your spouse should cost more than the down payment for a home. Depending on the state you live in, I think some divorce attorneys are just extremely jaded by the system as well and are only willing to put in minimal effort into a “futile” fight.

upvotersfortruth · 2025-06-08T02:06:44+00:00

Fighting is expensive. Most clients can’t afford to fight that hard. At the same time, many divorce attorneys aren’t really litigators so they might not be able to effectively fight the case - and the other side will know that. Clients also like to fight about stupid things out of anger that just burn cash but don’t have an effect on the outcome of the case. Clients also over-communicate and burn their budget ineffectively. Usually lawyers who keep the fighting to a minimum are trying to save their clients’ money, other times they’re poorly advocating. The best way to prevent this is to have an upfront conversation about the case and case strategy.

Comfortable-Angle660 · 2025-06-08T01:49:28+00:00

Definitely lazy on so many levels.

lewtus72 · 2025-06-08T01:40:26+00:00

The quick answer is yes. I went through four of them the minute they don't fight or don't know what they're doing. I for them all the time and they are pretty lazy. They just want you to accept whatever deal the whole game is to keep the clock running until you don't have any money

They don't care if you lose money that as long as they get paid they've lost me hundreds of thousands of dollars so far. So my patience is very thin for $400 an hour. They better get off their ass and do better than minimum wage effort. Don't feel bad about firing them

rsmiley77 · 2025-06-08T01:18:29+00:00

I’m think there’s some truth to this. I think they see cases everyday and start to pump all cases together and don’t try to do things off the trend line after a while. So they try to make every case the same. Do the same thing over and over again.

jimsmythee · 2025-06-08T01:17:27+00:00

The deal is, a bad or ruthless attorney will convince you to make this your hill to die on. To spend every last dime you have and still lose.

I’m sorry but some cases aren’t winnable. It could be the jurisdiction is very mother-centric. It could be that your position is untenable.

LibAftLife · 2025-06-08T00:47:26+00:00

Same with most marriage therapists.

a_day_at_a_timee · 2025-06-08T00:32:41+00:00

The real question is: Do you have $100,000 in liquid cash to give them?

If yes, then tell them you want to fight and money is no object.

If no, then settle this thing as fast as you possibly can.

Title	Is it me or are most of these divorce attorneys lazy and guiding male clients towards accepting bad divorce settlements?
Author	cowboy-Jim
Upvotes	34
Comments	42
Date	June 8, 2025 12:15 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1l5z68l/is_it_me_or_are_most_of_these_divorce_attorneys/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/is-it-me-or-are-most-of-these-divorce-attorneys.1554186 https://theredarchive.com/post/1554186

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