Insight On How To Hire An Attorney From An Attorney

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:00:05

Welcome to the D shift podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get the shift started. Hey, and thank you so much for tuning into the day shift podcast again. And today we have a topic that a lot of people have been asking for. And I have got the perfect guest to explain this to us. So Dena Nielson is a retired family law attorney with over 25 years of experience in representing people going through divorce. And she has a phenomenal wealth of wisdom around how to hire an attorney, and what you need to look for and what you need to be aware of when you're getting into working with legal professionals, because there are different types of legal professionals out there. So Dena, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you taking your time today.

Dena Nielson: 00:01:08

Oh, thank you so much. I was looking forward to it. Excellent.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:01:12

So I gave a very brief introduction about you. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself so that people can understand your background and why they need to listen to you about how to hire and?

Dena Nielson: 00:01:24

Well, I have a little bit different perspective. I think that a lot of lawyers. I was married at 19 and divorced at 23. No children, thank goodness did not see him, but one time after our divorce. So that, you know, it was it was hard at the moment, but it was over fairly quickly. And then here's, like, 16 years later, I went to law school. And I was much older than everyone else. Not everyone, but a lot of people in my class. And so I was what 38 When I went to law school, and I was 41 when I graduated. And I was working at that time as a clerk. You know, we just worked as a clerk during law school. And for a farm right there in Norman, Oklahoma. I went to Oh, you go Sooners. But yours like that. But anyway. Yeah, so I just stayed there as an attorney then. And he did Indian law, Native American law. And we had all kinds of clients, including divorces. So I did all of those because he wasn't gonna touch that. But unfortunately, Mr. practice to have passed away a few years later, in 1999. And that was a wake up call for me because I was in a very bad marriage. I had two children by that time. And I knew that if I didn't make a move, I was gonna be stuck there. And I did not want that. So I took my kids, we've moved to Colorado. And he stayed in Oklahoma, which was a good thing. And he's still there, by the way. And so I worked for a firm there in Denver, and for a few years, and then it became apparent that I needed help in my own office. And so I did, and I exclusively focused on family law, and did only divorces and child support and child custody and all that sort of thing. For 15 years, that we say that it doesn't sound like oh, 15 years, 15 years, a long time, but getting people divorced.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:03:49

It's it's a very emotionally draining part.

Dena Nielson: 00:03:53

Yeah, it absolutely is. It's a hard, it's a hard thing. And I always tell people, if you know, an attorney that does family law, feel sorry for them, take them soup, do whatever you need to do for them. Because they are having a hard time, especially now. I'm glad I'm kind of out of the litigation part. But there are so many cases right now built up because of the pandemic. They couldn't have the hearings and do the things they needed to do in court. So it's it's really hard on everybody, you know, because they're trying to catch up. It is

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:04:28

yeah, a lot of long hours the OH The only good thing I think that came out of this as I think some of the courts kind of understand now the value of doing some of these virtual things that it's much faster. You know, you're not moving people in and out you can you can log on you can you actually have better control of the process. I think I know a lot of family mediators are doing all their stuff. Now virtually. You know, let's face it, if you can keep people on a zoom call, you're not going to have the potential for three rats are danger or violence or anything compared to having them all in the same room. So,

Dena Nielson: 00:05:05

though drew, I did some mediation work, and I can tell you I had a glass wall, around the conference room in my office, and this lady came and she was unhappy. And she smashed her, her chair against the glass wall. I've never been more scared my life, I thought, Oh, my God, if that breaks, you know, we're in big trouble. Yeah, didn't break but scared me to death. And I thought I'm not having those kind of people in here anymore.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:05:35

Yeah. And it's hard to tell who those kinds of people are. Because some they don't present like that.

Dena Nielson: 00:05:41

I was shocked that that's what happened. I was like, whoa, what was going on here? Yeah. So anyway, all those things are true. And, and, you know, I close my office in 2018. So it was a little bit before all the virtual stuff got really, really popular. And so I never was able to I tried to do some virtual stuff, even then. But it was hard to do, because we didn't I didn't know about zoom. Well, if people

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:06:09

weren't comfortable people, you know, this, this whole if there's like I said, there's one good thing that came out of the pandemic, is it force people to get comfortable, comfortable with these platforms. And you know, some of us have been using for years and years, other people, this was all brand new. So I guess that's one, that's one plus side, but you know, and now there's options, right? You can do in person, you can do zoom, even I'm even working with a lot of my divorce clients now are requesting zoom, and the judges are still being very accommodating and saying, Sure, if all parties agreed to the Zoom meeting, hearing, let's do it that way. You know, so let's, let's get into let's get into this, this heart of of hiring professionals, the heart of the kind of the matter here, because for most people, not all, but most people, the first time you're going to have to hire an attorney is going to be for a divorce. So So tell me a little bit about what you would recommend that people do. And I would also like to pick your brain on some of the mistakes that you see people make when they hire attorneys. But let's start with the good stuff first. So how would you recommend and and I know you work with you work with people before divorce? Or do you mostly work with women after divorce?

Dena Nielson: 00:07:30

Mostly after?

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:07:31

Okay, so So what would you suggest to anybody who's listening on the call here? And always thinking that they are they need a divorce attorney, or a custody attorney or child support attorney or any of those professionals? Where do you start? How do you go about it?

Dena Nielson: 00:07:50

Well, I'll tell you, when I was practicing, so many people would come in and say, Well, my mom told me to call you or my neighbor told me to call you or you know, it was all word of mouth, primarily, which is fine for me. But I would recommend that you not only do that, you know, as you can ask people for their recommendation. But just because that was a good attorney for them. And they had a good outcome does not mean that that's going to work for you. I can't say it won't work for you. But I would say you need to do your own research, and find your own person. Because a lot of times people come in and they don't they first of all, they don't know what they need, or what kind of person they're looking for. But that's why you do your research before you go. Right? Because because you want the attorney that's best for you. Right? Not best for your neighbor, your mother or whoever, the one that's best for you. And I will tell you say this when you go in to talk to the attorney, if that attorney is giving you a canned speech, and you can spot them a mile away, and I'm sure everybody understands what I'm talking about this, you know, words are coming out of their mouth just like well, no, no, no, no, yeah. And they're not really listening to you and your story. Because that's the most important part is your story and what's going on when you're lie. It's not about me, I'm gonna go home and be fine. Either way, you are the one that needs the help. Okay. So I would just say it's very important that the attorney listen to you. validate your feelings, understand where you're coming from. And not be untouchable or cold toward you. You know, you can just tell when somebody clicks with somebody. And, you know, I have had people come in that I would say, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be able to help you because I know. I would know immediately if they were going to be a good client or a bad client. And I didn't want any bad clients. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I Know That sounds terrible, but I just didn't want any bad clients. You know, nobody does. So you just want to be kind of choosy about who you take them on. And not all attorneys feel that way. Most of them say if you're, if you have a heartbeat, they have a checkbook.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:10:19

That seems to be a big criteria for a lot of attorneys is how are you going to pay for this?

Dena Nielson: 00:10:23

Like, well, yeah, that is important, but it's not the most. To me, it was never the most important thing. The most important thing would not be able to help you would not be able to get done what you want. Because if I can't do what you want, are what you expect. And I can't give you reasonable expectations that you adopt as your own. Then we got trouble.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:10:43

Yeah. So I really I really liked that. So what I and I'm just going to summarize and you tell me if I got it, right. That, that you really think in your in your opinion that the attorneys should be asking questions of you, and should be listening to the information you give them? If the whole conversation is just this is how I'm going to help you and they don't even know what you want. There's a problem with that.

Dena Nielson: 00:11:08

That's an issue. Yeah. When when the lawyer is doing all the talking, and you're not? Right, that's your first clue. Yeah, that might not be the person for you. But particularly if you're younger, and less experienced and have never had an attorney before for any reason. You know, that's, that's gonna be a hard thing for you to do. Number one to hire the attorney because you don't really know what, what to expect or what to do. And those are the people I always had the most sympathy for, because I knew they didn't know what to ask me or anything. So I was out. On the one hand, I wanted to tell them that. But on the other hand, I want you to hear what they have to say.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:11:53

And so you know that interesting enough? That's a lot of the the work that I do with my clients, sometimes we spent two or three sessions, just how are you going to interview an attorney? That's really important. So what what are, say, two or three questions that you think that any woman going into hire an attorney for divorce should definitely make sure that they get asked and answered in that consultation session?

Dena Nielson: 00:12:18

Well, I will say the one question just stop asking is how many cases have you won? Stop asking that? Because, you know, we in cases and family law, you might get favorable outcomes, but I wouldn't consider that a win. I don't I don't know anybody that thinks that's a win. Right? You know, everybody's kind of a loser, basically. So don't ask the lawyer, how many questions how many cases they've won? Because they will tell you they've won every single one?

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:12:48

Sure. Because they've represented a client, right.

Dena Nielson: 00:12:52

And I would always just laugh when, when they asked me that, and almost every single person asked me that. And I think because I come across as very personable in the office, they think I'm not tough enough, you know, in court. They don't mistake that because that doesn't mean I'm not tough in court. So never judge the attorney by how they act in the office. But how you think they're gonna act in court, you know, maybe find somebody that used that attorney and ask them how they acted in court. That would be the better way to go about it. Because I know my personality changes the minute I go in court. Sure. I think everybody, every lawyer has a different personality in court than they do in their office. I don't know when but doesn't

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:13:35

you have to write because you got a different role. It's a different job when you're in court.

Dena Nielson: 00:13:39

That's right. You absolutely have to and then that's the training you get in law school. That's what law school is about, is making you think like a lawyer or network lawyer. And you do that in court? You don't necessarily have to do that at 100% of the time in your office. Right. Right. So that's one thing. Another question that I think is important, especially if you have a high asset case. and a high asset case means that you have substantial assets, and maybe liabilities, too, but you have substantial assets. You have children you have, you know, things that matter,

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:14:17

property investments, retirement plans. Yeah.

Dena Nielson: 00:14:20

Yeah, exactly. So if you have all those things, that's when you need to be especially careful, and make sure that the attorney is experienced in handling those kinds of cases. So that'd be a question to ask, how do you handle a lot of high asset cases? Because if they say, Oh, sure, and then you find out later, they don't, you know, not that that would happen, but I'm just saying, that's a good question to ask. And the attorney fees are always a big issue. Let's just get right to it. Yeah. The attorney will naturally tell you what the fee is and what the Right is how they handle the retainer and, and all that sort of thing. But you want to be sure that you understand that before you sign the retainer agreement, because once you sign that that's a contract, and you're bound to that. So you don't, you don't want to sign that unless you totally understand it. And it's better to ask more questions than less around that issue. Because, you know, I've never had anybody misunderstand, because I made sure I've explained it, then I would say, Do you have any questions? Do you do totally understand what I'm saying? Because your retainer is just that it's just that amount of money to get the case started?

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:15:41

It is not the total bill for you? Oh, no,

Dena Nielson: 00:15:45

no, no, it's never going to be the total bill. And, you know, people will say, Well, I hope I get some of that back, well, that's probably not going to happen, let me just be honest, because the retainer is set up, just to be just as a starter amount, and then you're going to get noticed, and a lawyer will tell you how you're going to get noticed. But I would always send an email with along with the invoice and say, you can see that your retainer is almost exhausted. So we will need you to reimburse to replenish that in the amount of whatever just depends on where you are in the case, how much that retainer replenishment is going based.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:16:27

And so can I just it and I don't do not want to put you on the spot. So you do not need to answer this question. If you if it's not appropriate, so just let me know. But it kind of my clients often get really upset with their attorneys. Because typically, the last thing the attorney says to them after that first meeting is, if you have any questions, reach out to me, I'd be happy to answer them for you. What they, what the people don't connect the dots with is every one of those phone calls, emails, texts, is coming out of that retainer, and it's at a set amount, it's not per second that you're talking, it's like for a phone call, you get billed for 15 minutes section or whatever, right? Is that how most attorneys run this? So can you explain a little bit about what that retainer is used for? And how come it goes from $5,000 to zero, in the first two months, when nothing has happened legally, maybe?

Dena Nielson: 00:17:22

Well, what's going to happen is, there's going to be your case set up in the office that gets charged, your you know, they're going to be filing your paperwork. So they have to do that. They're going to be gathering your financials. And usually by the time they get that file served, and they start working on the financials that $5,000 just used up. You know, what, I don't know what the right is? Nationally, an average right, but my right was 375 an hour. And that was in 2018. So I'm sure if they're higher net? Well, I know they are, they're higher now. So you can just see it, you know, at four 450 an hour is going to be used up pretty quick, especially if it's the law, you're doing the work, right, and then you have a paralegal doing the work. And it will be you know, considerably less. And the paralegal does do a lot of the work at the beginning, you know, setting up the case and filing the paperwork and get the signatures and gathering the materials. But the lawyer has to oversee that. So you can't just turn it over to a paralegal, you can't do that. Right. So the lawyers gonna have a certain amount of time, even in that first thought, $1,000, or whatever it is, right? And so, but then as you as you go through, you know, you gotta go to mediation, you got something, and there's a preparation meeting for that, and then the actual mediation, and then if that doesn't work out and you go to trial, then you're really talking some money. Yeah.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:19:00

Yeah. And I really appreciate you breaking that down. Because I think that's a really big misconception that a lot of people who don't have never been through this don't understand that that that retainer is like the deposit. Yes, it is. Last, and you may, you know, I was reading somewhere that the typical the average for a contested divorce now is 36,000 per side, that's not 36,000 Total 36 per person. So, and I've got clients that I'm working with that are two or three years into their divorce and like 100,000 Plus in legal fees, so it can be all over the it can be all over the spectrum. So really, making sure that you believe in you Oh, one of the things I want to touch base on with you. What happens when you hire an attorney and you find out a month into this that you You're not in agreement with what the attorney is doing, or you can't communicate with the attorney or you're, you know, you're contacting the attorney and never getting any responses back. And you fire that attorney and get another attorney. What what happens to your case? When when you have more when you do that attorney jumping kind of experience?

Dena Nielson: 00:20:19

Well, I see people do that. And I never want to be the second lawyer. Okay. So if you do that too many times, you won't be able to find a lawyer because nobody wants to be this, certainly not I'm not going to be the third lawyer. Because that just tells me that there's a problem. And it's not me, there's a problem, right? So you don't, you don't want to be that person. But at the same time, you don't want to stay with an attorney that you disagree with. Or, or certainly you don't want to stay with an attorney that you can't reach by email or phone or some way, you need to be able to have that communication. And I will tell you that the highest number of grievances against the lawyers are is because of that lack of communication. That's, that's what gets grievances at the Bar Association. Right? So you don't want to be you don't want to done never did that always unpacked what I always did, I had my business card, I had my personal cell phone, email, you know, every, every way to contact me was on there. And I said, use any of these that you see fit and call me anytime. You know, I might answer I might not. You know, it's there. Right. But a lot of people don't do that a lot of people have and say no, I'm not doing that. Yeah, any contact then has to go through the paralegal, which is fine. I mean, if that works, that's fine, right. But the lawyer just needs to be aware of, of that communication has to be there.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:21:50

And I think that all goes back to the very first point that you raised is doing your research on the attorney, and then asking those important questions when you're in that meeting. So can you tell us a little bit about what what your area of expertise is now? Because like I alluded to it earlier, you work with professional women with kids, right? Kind of post divorce? Tell us because we picked your brains about that last half. And I so appreciate you doing that. Because I know that's not that's not necessarily what you want to work with what you work with your clients on. And I want to have some time to talk about that. So what is it that you do? And what what do people come to you for?

Dena Nielson: 00:22:28

Well, certainly I am focusing now on professional women with children. Because primarily I was that professional woman with children with a mom divorced, most recent divorce. And so I have written a book called common sense, divorce 10 steps to save you time, money and worry,

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:22:48

I have it right here. It's a great, I'm putting a plug in for this, get it if you're going through divorce, very helpful.

Dena Nielson: 00:22:57

Photos, the books. That was funny. Yes. And then I'll do the course and I presented Lab, I'm still working on getting that up evergreen, but that will be up Evergreen. And I've also done a course on co parenting, the best practices for co parenting after divorce. And that will be up here soon. You know, those editing those videos thing just take quite a while. So what's going on with that? And then I'm speaking everywhere I can speak, such as here, and other places about that sort of thing I do. You know, I'm launching a coaching program probably in January. And we'll be working on that and getting the word out about that. But what I have seen in my practice is that, like we talked about before, people don't understand what's about to happen. Yeah, when they come in initially, they they think, Oh, well, this is gonna be over, you know, it only takes, let's just say it only takes 90 days to get a divorce. Right? It'll be over three months. Now, that doesn't happen very often, if ever. And so it's, you know, if you can make that happen, great. But most of the time, it does not happen like that. So, what I saw is that people really need help that like you provide, and like divorce coaches provide in general, I think as much as they may be attorney, the attorney is going to handle the legal aspect of the case. They're going to go to court with you. They're going to make the argument in your benefit in front of the judge. They're going to try to get you everything that you want. But that doesn't mean that they understand your emotions or how you're handling the divorce are things that other things that are going on in your life. You know, I would always tell my clients because I have had seem to have a lot of a lot of clients that were very highly emotional. They charged and I would say, you know, you have to look at this divorce it just like a business deal. It's a business deal gone bad. That's all it is, it's a contract, and we're gonna get out of the contract, and we're gonna move on. But if you can't make rational decisions during that process, in other words, if you're too highly emotional to think rationally, then you're going to have trouble. Yeah. And your lawyers, not the one that's going to say, you know, what, you need to calm down. Yeah, they're not going to they're supposed to, but she's too upset, okay.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:25:36

It's not their job. They're not there. They're not, you know, they're not trained. That's, that's not their, that's not their skill set. And, and that's why I think if people, if men or women, if they, if they invest in a coach that gets them out of that emotional state, gives them the space to make decisions, think out scenarios, plan long term, they are going to not only save money with their attorney, but they're going to walk out of the divorce settlement, whether it's in court, or whether it's a mediated settlement. I'm always pushing for the mediated settlements, but you're gonna walk out of that, and they're not going to have buyer's remorse because they're gonna say, Yeah, I didn't get everything I wanted, but I got what I needed. And I'm able

Dena Nielson: 00:26:16

to move forward. You just got to get what you can live with. Yeah. Okay. That's the thing. Yeah. That's what I would always tell my mate mediation clients. When I was doing that, I would say, do you have everything that you can? Can you live with this? And that's really the question to ask yourself when the offer comes. Can you live with that? Yeah, not, that's not everything I want. So now I can live with that. Don't be like, don't be that person, you know, be the person that says, I can compromise, I realized that it takes to to make this same thing. Go. Yeah. And so if both parties can compromise this kind of save you time, money and worry, just like I said in the book.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:26:56

Yeah. And I think another interesting thing to have people compare us I recently had a lady. She hadn't been married very long, either. Maybe thinking maybe two or three years, maybe three or four years? Because it was before definitely before COVID. They were married, so maybe four or five years now. And I asked her, I said, How much did you spend on your wedding? She said, I spent $80,000 on my wedding. I said, How long did it take you to plan your wedding, she said, Ah, it probably took us close to a year to plan it. And I said, and you own nothing together, you did not have children, you had no commitment to each other. You didn't have commingled funds. And it took you 12 months, and $80,000 to plan one day. And now you want to dissolve everything, make it fair, share kids come up with a co parenting plan and do everything and you want it for $5,000 in three months. Tell me how that actually

Dena Nielson: 00:27:47

works. Great boy, well,

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:27:51

you just got to look at it like that. So this has been incredibly valuable. Thank you so much. And and I hope that everybody who's listening, if you are a professional woman, going through the co parenting experience struggling with post divorce kind of stuff, if you want clarity like this talk to Dana because she's she's the person that you need to talk to. So what would you like people to remember from our conversation as kind of the big picture, big picture topic from this podcast,

Dena Nielson: 00:28:22

I think the best thing that people can remember is that hiring their attorney is the first major decision you're gonna make, it's only the first of many decisions. So you got to get on the right foot from the get go. And that's, you know, I just always encourage people to think about that, when you're making that decision. Don't say, oh, that this, this guy's okay, we'll just go with him. That's not, that's not how you want to do it. You want to do your research, ask brands, get referrals, talk to about four or five lawyers before you make your decision, at least that many. If there's that many in your area, I live in a real small town. So for me, but anyway, that those are important steps to take. And I think if you remember that, and get off on the right foot to start with, you'll have a much better experience.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:29:17

Wonderful. And if people do want to reach out, learn a little bit more about what you do, or reach out and get in touch with you. What's the best way to do that?

Dena Nielson: 00:29:26

Well, in fact, I have a gift for your audience. It's at the nielsen.com. That's my website. And you'll see on there that says, you know, download my free gift or your free gift, whatever it says, anyway, that's where you can get it. It's top 10 tips for your best case divorce. And it's a little it's about a 14 page ebook that just takes you through all the things I think you should do or not do. So that's one way and then the other way and I'll give you this link a little later is I'm offering a 30 minute consultation with me for free. Anybody that wants to talk to me about, whatever, that's your case, I can't give you legal advice. My license is inactive in both states, but I'm happy to give you common sense advice. Kind of like your mother would.

Mardi Winder-Adams: 00:30:18

Yeah, there was a little more legal expertise.

Dena Nielson: 00:30:25

But yeah, I'd be happy to talk to anyone that wants to sign up for that. And the link for that will be in the show notes.