Calera Divorce Lawyers

Our Calera divorce lawyers are currently charging a flat fee for uncontested divorces in Shelby County, Alabama. Whether you need a contested or uncontested divorce, we can help.

The uncontested divorce may require additional fees if there are substantial property or tax considerations involved, business interests, paternity issues, retirement issues, or any other complex issues that would require more time of the attorney. There is also a filing fee that the county charges when a divorce is filed.

This filing fee varies from county to county.  You typically file a divorce in the county where one of you live, so if you or your spouse live in Shelby County that is where you would likely file your case. Give our Calera divorce lawyer a call today to find out the filing fee where you live.

To get a quick divorce in Calera, both spouses must be in complete agreement about all marital issues such as custody, child support, and property division. To get started with an uncontested divorce in Calera, you can fill out a questionnaire on our website by clicking on the link to the right of page or call us to email or mail you one.

You usually do not have to meet our Calera divorce attorney in person and there are hardly ever any hearings in an uncontested divorce since an agreement has already been reached. If you want to speak with our Calera divorce lawyer, then they can usually speak with you the same day you call or if you want to meet in person then we will be happy to set up an appointment in our Alabaster office.

To get a cheap uncontested divorce in Calera, both spouses must be in complete agreement and willing to sign the appropriate paperwork. The documents our Calera divorce lawyer prepares include something called a settlement agreement, which can just say that both of you keep your own property and debts, or it can address things such as property division or child custody.

As long as you return the paperwork to us signed by both you and your spouse, then you can get a quick and easy divorce in Calera and never have to take off work to go to Court. You can get divorced by just signing and executing paperwork and getting it to our office and our Calera divorce attorney will take care of it from there.

Once the agreement has been signed and filed, the judge will approve the agreement and issue your divorce decree. This can usually be done without any hearings in Shelby County. There is a waiting period in Alabama, which means the judge has to wait thirty days before issuing your divorce decree. However, the judge will usually sign the decree shortly after this time has expired.

You should get your divorce decree by email and mail from our office once the judge has signed it. The judges in each county have their own local requirements, so you should retain a local Calera divorce attorney to prepare your uncontested divorce so that there are no issues. Our divorce attorney in Calera is aware of such local rules and will work with you to ensure that you get your divorce finalized as quickly and easily as possible.

If you live in Calera and there is no agreement, then you will have to file a contested divorce in Shelby County Court. A contested divorce is where you file the case asking the judge to give you what you want, including custody, the house, or whatever marital assets there are to divide. If no resolution can be reached through negotiations after the contested divorce is filed, then there will eventually be a trail and the judge will decide all of the issues for you.

This process is much longer and more expensive than an uncontested divorce. However, if there are issues that are non-negotiable, such as both parties wanting custody of their child or to be awarded the marital home, then this might be the best process for you.

To have a Calera divorce attorney file your case for you and represent you throughout the process, they will usually want something called a retainer. A retainer is an up-front payment that the divorce attorney uses to bill their fees out of as they earn them. So, you pay the divorce lawyer an up-front retainer and they file your case. During the divorce process, the attorney keeps up with their hours and bills this retainer as necessary. When the retainer is exhausted, you will have to refill it for the attorney to continue working on your case.

Most retainers for contested divorces in Calera and throughout Shelby County are thousands of dollars, but exactly how much depends on the facts of your case.  Whether you need a divorce attorney in Alabaster, Calera, Helena, Columbiana, Montevallo, or the surrounding areas of Shelby County, Alabama we can help.

Calera is one of the fastest growing cities in Alabama. Downtown Calera is only a few miles down I-65 from our Alabaster office, so if you want to meet the divorce attorney or drop off documents in person you can easily do so. If you need a divorce lawyer in Pelham, Calera, Alabaster, Helena, Chelsea, Montevallo, Vincent, Wilsonville, Shelby, Columbiana, Harpersville, Sterrett, Westover, then you will likely be filing in Shelby County.

Our attorney is a member of the Shelby County Bar Association and the Better Business Bureau so take a look at our BBB profile for more information about our law firm. We can usually answer your questions and address your concerns over the phone the same day you call. Call our Calera divorce lawyer today and let us answer your questions about the divorce process.

When you and your spouse cannot come to an agreement on your own, the other way to file for divorce is called a contested divorce. In a contested divorce, one spouse serves the other with a Complaint. Once served, the spouse usually enlists the help of an attorney and files a response. There are hearings set and a judge ultimately decides your disagreements for you if the two of you cannot otherwise.

Should you need to file a contested divorce, our experienced contested divorce attorney is available to help guide and consult you. It is important that attorney fees are significantly higher than an uncontested divorce. Like most divorce lawyers, we require a retainer for such services and our attorney will bill hourly from it depending on the amount of work performed. So, depending on how long it takes to resolve your marital issues in the divorce, the attorney fees could get expensive.

You can call our office today to find out how much of a retainer we would require up front to begin working on your divorce case. You will usually need to have a quick phone consultation with our contested divorce attorney in Calera before we can quote you a fee, especially if there are minor children or other potentially complex issues involved. This is the reason an uncontested divorce is almost always cheaper and easier than a contested one.