If you have a pending Civil case (i.e. custody, divorce, child support) or you soon will have a case in court, the court system can be very intimidating. Even some attorneys, are nervous as hell trying to navigate their client's case through all of the craziness of court.
First of all, when you are dealing with matters of divorce, custody, child support, their are a lot of emotions involved. Most people who are fighting one another in these types of cases are not very friendly towards one another. This just makes going through the process of trying to gain custody of your child(ren), stay in your home, getting alimony, obtaining child support even harder. It's hard to separate out the emotions and rationally deal with the legalities of your case. This is why people hire attorneys. They want someone who is an expert in handling legal cases. They want an attorney who will fight for what they want and take some of the stress off of them.
However, the reality is that most people can't afford to spend the crazy amount of money it cost for an attorney. How do I know? I know because I am an attorney and it easily can cost anywhere from $4,000 to $ 15,000 to have me represent you in a Civil case in court. The truth is, sometimes, the figures I just gave you are low. It can easily be a lot more expensive than that. I know...it sounds crazy but, I am telling you the way it is. I have been practicing law for over twenty years and am what we call a litigator. This means that I am in court all the time fighting to gain custody of children for someone; fighting to keep my client in their home while they are going through a divorce; fighting to get my client child support and alimony even while we wait to get a final divorce, and so on and so on. You know what I am trying to say.
When I first start practicing law many moons ago, I worked for Legal Aid. I wanted to do this for several reasons. While, the money I made was not very much, the experience I gained was tremendous. You see we had several law offices throughout the State of Maryland. I was able to pick up the phone anytime and contact any of my co-workers and get help with any case I was working on. I worked there for five years and I managed one of the law offices for three of the five years. Also, working at Legal Aid allowed me to work on a lot of cases at any given time. I was able to help a lot of people in a short period of time and I loved it. This experience gave me a lot of compassion and understanding for the people who find themselves in the middle of a divorce. I was able to see, up close and personal, how difficult it is to go through the court system if you are in the middle of it. To sum it up, working at Legal Aid was the best training ground I could have ever asked for. Since then, I have worked as a Child support prosecutor and have had my own private law practice. While handling domestic law cases can be stressful as hell, I absolutely love it. I put it like this. Somebody has got to care...somebody has to help. And, I know that God has put me in the position of caring about people in these situations and He has given me the heart to help.
To this end, I want to help you if you find yourself having to deal with a Civil case in the court. I want to give people an alternative if they cannot afford the thousands of dollars it cost to hire an attorney. God has blessed me with a vast amount of legal knowledge and it's time for me to share it.