Finding a divorce attorney

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Hi all,
I assume this is the correct forum of the ones that could apply.

Anyways, I'm just going to skip why I want the divorce as that's probably not helpful. But, it is extremely clear and increasingly clear every day that she's not capable of being in a functioning marriage and has no interest in learning. Which is a real shame as she wasn't like that before we got married and that's from my mother-in-law who is generally on my side in our fights.

So, the question is, how do you go about getting an attorney? I've been doing web searches, but between spotty cellphone service, my wife being at home pretty much constantly and just general executive functioning challenges, it's been difficult to get through the process of finding attorneys to call and then calling. I did call one attorney, but I'm guessing that they aren't in business as I didn't get any sort of response from them.

This has been going on long enough now that I think I've vastly exceeded anything that I could reasonably expect to do to save the marriage and probably a fair number of unreasonable things as well.

Do you have any friends or acquaintances who could give you a recommendation (or a thumbs down recommendation)? That is one the best places to start.

Have you tried your local bar association?

Most places will require you to start with family mediation.
Courts are moving toward non-adversarial divorces.

Do you have any (legally) shared property?

Do you have kids?

If the answer to both is "no", then you shouldn't need an attorney.

We've got family courts here, but I've had to call the cops on her due to her having a temper tantrum and not being willing to let me just leave long enough for things to cool down. I think this is probably more about concerns over just how messy it is to be married to somebody that's showing clear signs of mental illness and an unwillingness to acknowledge reality. There's the very real possibility that there'll need to be paperwork filed for a protection order if she still doesn't accept that the marriage is over and accept that we both need to just move on.

I'm lucky in the sense that we don't have kids and have minimal shared property, I'd pretty much give her all that if I had to just to be rid of it as the most valuable assets I've gained during the marriage are in terms of degrees that the courts can't touch. A couple years of work in my new line of work would make up for pretty much anything that she would legally be entitled to.

I think the correct answer here probably is probably going to be to check with the local bar as the only people I know who have gotten divorced were able to largely leave the courts out of it except for the final bit of paperwork to make it official. I may wind up needing to have my family help a bit in terms of sorting through things and help with the logistics of that though, as it's pretty clear that for various reasons I'm struggling.

Thanks all.

It's a lot easier if you don't have children and you're willing to surrender assets if needed.
You may not need a mediator in that case, but it's still possible depending on the jurisdiction.

My word of advice is to avoid the details of her behaviour as much as possible.
I'm wordy and obsessed with detail / proof, so I've always gone way overboard in documents.
Judges and lawyers have both admitted to me they didn't even read all my submissions.

You don't need a reason to ask for divorce.
Irreconcilable differences is sufficient.

The more you write, the more she can and will contest.
The more she contests, the more hearings you'll need.
The more thousands of dollars you'll pay.
Lawyers bank on this and they'll draw it out as long as possible to get a nice new car.

No matter how hard you go at her you'll have to make an Offer to Settle at the end.
That will wipe everything off the table and force you to start from scratch.

That's a fair point. I'm not a particular fan of Dr. Phil, but I do think he was right about the fact that we often get to choose between being right and getting what we want. Much of the time we can't have both. In this case, I want out, and relatively quickly. The vast majority of my assets were in accounts form before we got married and I haven't put a cent in or taken it out since, which means that those will be mine. The rest of it would suck to lose, but compared with the lost opportunities to find somebody that actually is capable of treating me with respect, it's worth it.

I think that's relatively similar for when my brother got divorced. She said she wanted out, and he said she couldn't come back when she tried to change her mind. He let her basically have pretty much whatever she wanted, but he needed real joint custody. I don't even need that much.

Plead your case for the assets, as needed.
I just meant that there's no point addressing marital issues.

I had the same issue because the assets were mine prior to marriage.
He's been fighting it for over 25 years now.

Beyond that, custody was a s**tshow.
Actually it's been going 25 years as well.

I didn't initiate any of it.
Even if you "win", it's very rare to be awarded costs.

Keep it as short and simple as possible, like a two page brief.

Right, I may have misspoken there. I'm not really suggesting that I give her everything I have, more that the portion of the assets that could be subject to division is pretty small compared with the amount of income I'm expecting going forward. And I don't believe we've been married long enough that I'd be stuck with alimony into the distant future.

And she's got an inheritance that she should get to keep which trumps everything that could be at stake under my understanding of local law.

I do feel a lot better, and it looks like it could be as little as 90 days, although I'd wager that the courts are still backed up from all the covid related closures and increases in divorce prevalence.