Can You “Conflict Out” Your Spouse’s Divorce Attorney? The Truth About This Controversial Divorce Strategy

There's a dirty little secret in family law known as conflicting out. What does that mean? That means that your family law attorney, or your prospective family law attorney, will send you to other family law attorneys to get a free consult or a paid consult, so that you can conflict them. What does that mean? That means that your spouse — soon-to-be ex-spouse — cannot hire them, because you've already had a consult with them. So they're removed. Why would somebody do that? That's a good question. I wouldn't do that. A good family law attorney, a good attorney, takes all comers. But they would do that under the guise of, "Well, I don't want to work against that person, because they're too difficult, because they're too expensive, they're going to run up the bill" — whatever excuse they give. Think about that, though, as a consumer and as a client or potential client of that attorney. Which attorney do you really want: the one that sends you to other attorneys to be prey, and do fake consults to waste your time and money because they don't want to go against them — or the attorney that they're afraid to go against?