What are Family Lawyers?

first year as a lawyer

Like most kinds of law, family law can be very complicated in even the most simple-seeming situations, and not all lawyers are fully equipped to deal with all cases. Whether you are looking into a divorce or wanting to work out fair custody for a child, you will need to look into family lawyers – specially trained lawyers with all of the experience and knowledge required to help you properly. But what exactly are they?

The Cases

Family solicitors are able to take on quite a wide range of cases, but all of them are connected to family life and relationships in one way or another. These could be divorce proceedings, adoption, restraining orders, or even some highly-specific situations that aren’t really standard cases: anything that directly takes family members into a legal context, whether good or bad. There are obvious exceptions for crimes committed by family members, but the majority of family-focused cases involve these lawyers.

The main reason that family lawyers are so outstanding is due to the experience that they have. Not only are they very familiar with family laws, which are the laws that specifically relate to these cases, but they might have won several similar situations in the past. This means that they know exactly what they need to do, and can often offer you more advice than a conventional lawyer if you are not sure how they can help you.

What Do They Do?

Unlike the crime-focused lawyers you see on television, family lawyers can often play a much more subdued role, especially at the start of a case. For example, even if you hire the best lawyers London can offer you, there might still be several days where you arrange meetings and provide documents about the situation. In some cases, such as a tricky but mutual divorce, the entire point of their involvement might be legal advice.

Since each country has different laws, even in relation to family matters, you will usually want to hire family lawyers from within the same country, if possible. For example, London will generally offer firms or individual lawyers experienced in UK family law when it comes to family law solicitors. In situations where both sides of the case are in different countries, the plaintiff’s country is usually the one that hosts the entire situation, since they are the person making a claim.

Why might I hire family solicitors?

Family law can apply in a huge list of different situations, and there is no knowing when a unique case can spring up due to inter-family conflicts or other sudden problems. Because of this, there is a lot of different reasons why a particular person might decide that family lawyers are needed. Of course, the lawyers also have the chance to reject a case if they are not required, especially those that are too small to require their own legal case.

Some more common reasons for hiring them include:

Divorce

Family lawyers can smoothen out a divorce process and help resolve any conflicts over property or possessions, especially if the divorce is caused by problems within the relationship that have already been handled in another case. This might also extend to managing the custody of a child or working out the best way to ensure that clients can support themselves after the separation.

Restraining Orders

If a family member has been causing problems to another family member, a restraining order can sometimes be the best solution, but a lawyer might be required to fully arrange it. This depends on the situation since restraining orders can vary massively and might even be put forward from past cases.

Child Treatment

Another common use of family lawyers is to help protect children, either by arranging custody visits between separated parents or taking them away from family members that might actively harm them in private. Once again, this can make all kinds of different forms, so the case’s exact specifics will quite often vary.

Whether you are picking between the lawyers London firms are offering or taking a look at more niche companies, family lawyers can be the experts you need to manage a wide variety of different legal problems that involve your family, no matter how simple or complicated they might seem from an outsider’s perspective.