Lawyer Referral/Do I need a lawyer?

When one spouse has a significantly higher income than the other spouse, in some states, there may be an option for the lower-income spouse to ask the judge to order the higher-income spouse to pay their lawyer’s fees. I am not sure if this is frequently done in your state or not but perhaps you can contact a lawyer to ask if this would be a possibility to request in court? We link to private lawyers on our Lawyer Referral Services [HYPERLINK] page. Another possibility may be that some private lawyers may agree to take a small payment up front and wait for the remainder of the payment until the divorce case settles if there are significant assets that will be divided up.

If a private lawyer says that it’s not likely a judge would order the other spouse to pay your legal fees, you may want to call a legal services organization to see if you can get free legal help. Many of the free legal services organizations have specific income limitations. Some may require looking at the “marital income” as opposed to one’s individual income. However, if the places that you call say that they consider marital income or marital assets, you may be able to explain that you do not have access to the money or to the marital assets and ask that they consider that fact. We link to free legal services on our Legal Assistance [HYPERLINK]  page.

And if it turns out that you have to represent yourself in court, we have extensive information on our Preparing for Court - By Yourself page that may be helpful. We also have basic divorce information for STATE [HYPERLINK] that you can look at as well.