What Happens in a Family Law Initial Consultation
Even considering divorce can create fear and uncertainty for many people. What will happen to my children? What will happen to my home? How will I support myself? If you’ve been through a divorce and you have questions about changing child custody or child support arrangements, what are your options? The Family Law Initial Consultation is an opportunity for you to ask those questions and more. In this video, Fort Bend County Family Law Attorney Vonda Covington talks about the family law initial consultation. For an appointment, please call our office at 281-762-0578.
Summary of Vonda’s Family Law Initial Consultation Video
– Hi, my name’s Vonda Covington. I’m a divorce attorney in Richmond, Texas, in Fort Bend County. I wanted to talk a little bit about the way we do at our family law initial consultations.
Family Law Initial Consultation
We do an initial consultation that is usually somewhere between an hour and two hours long. During that time, the attorney meets with the client. We talk to the client about what’s going on in their lives, what brings them to us, what their concerns and questions are. We go through what their options are, what kind of divorce process options there are, what the law is, and how that sort of crosses with what their situation is and what they can expect if they do this. If they go down this path, this is probably the type of thing that you can expect, and what you can expect if you go down this other path to get to the final result.
We Ask for Information to Understand Your Situation
We ask for a lot of information for the initial consultation. We ask people to fill out an interview sheet. We have things on the interview sheet that we need to know for the purpose of really understanding your situation. If it’s a divorce and there’s some sort of a marital estate, we need to know what that looks like to let them know, you know, how the law is going to affect them and what they can expect in the process. Young kids get treated differently from older kids. When there’s certain kinds of problems, those things get treated differently.
At the end of our initial consultation, our goal is that our client will have enough information to know the best way is for them to proceed and what the next steps are for them to move in that direction.
Just Thinking About Divorce?
Sometimes people come to us earlier in the process kind of, you know, I’m thinking maybe I’m gonna need to get divorced. If I do, what’s that gonna look like? We’re happy to answer those kinds of questions.
A lot of times, I’ve had people who have come in for one initial consultation and then maybe another “initial consultation” a year later, and a third a couple years after that and then they finally decide that you know what, this just isn’t working. They can’t fix it and they need to move forward. I’m happy to help in situations like that. So is my partner, Jamie, as well.
A Family Law Initial Consultation Can Help You Make the Right Decisions Right Now
In situations where things are exploding and the party needs our help right now, we are able to come up with the steps that we’re going to take. This is what you need to do to protect yourself, and this is how we should go forward.
There are a lot of times when people come in and they want to know what options they have but they don’t really want to fight in court, and we are able to talk them through that, as well, so that they can then talk with their spouse about other alternatives other than just full-blown war. (Those options might include collaborative divorce, divorce mediation or an uncontested divorce.)
So, that’s what our family law initial consultation is. It’s a chance for the client to get to know the attorney, the attorney to get to know the client, the attorney gets to ask enough questions to be able to get the information that the attorney needs to give good quality sound legal advice, and the client gets to ask enough questions to figure out what they really need to do.
Like I say the initial consultation lasts an hour or an hour and a half, or maybe even two hours. Sometimes it takes every bit of that time to cover what we need to talk about. It is well worth it, because by the time the client leaves, the client should have a pretty good idea what the client can do and what his or her options are moving forward.
Contact Us for More Information
Please call our office for more information at 281-762-0578 or send us an email using our contact form. Family Law Attorneys Vonda Covington and Jamie Zand are experienced family lawyers who care about their clients.