When you interview a Florida divorce lawyer with an eye toward retaining the lawyer to help with your divorce, you should ask questions about the availability of that lawyer. At the most, people sometimes ask how busy a schedule the lawyer currently has and whether there are legal assistants who can answer phone calls if the lawyer is tied up in court. Another important question to ask is whether the lawyer employs an answering service to field phone calls after normal working hours.

Many issues come up in a divorce at times when law offices are normally closed for the day. Questions arise as to visitation issues, lack of payment of funds, should someone be allowed to take marital property out of the home, and so on. The most serious of these questions involve domestic violence or the threat of domestic violence.

In our firm, we have been able to advise clients how to protect themselves and how to protect their children from potential domestic violence because we have been available 24 hours a day for their phone calls. The process is very simple. The client calls our normal office number and the answering service answers. The client explains that the matter is urgent and a lawyer calls back right away. In certain situations, we have been involved with calling 911 when the client is afraid that there may not be enough time.

Bottom Line: Before you hire an expert Florida divorce lawyer, make sure that the lawyer is available to serve you 24 hours a day by way of an answering service.

(copyright Stann Givens 2009)