The high cost of hiring an attorney prevents most people from hiring an attorney; or causes people who do hire an attorney to go into debt. You don’t need an attorney, but it is much harder deal with any family law issue without one, especially if the other party has an attorney.

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The cost to hire a family law attorney is excessively high because:

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1. There are not enough attorneys. A lot of people graduate from law school, but do not pass the California Bar Exam. California has the lowest bar pass rate of any state.

 

The people who do not pass the bar generally come from the lowest ranked law schools. Most family law attorneys come from the lowest ranked law schools. 

 

If more people passed the bar, more people would practice family law, which would naturally lead to more family law attorneys, and lower prices.

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2. The State Bar of California decides who passes the bar exam and who gets to practice law in the state of California.  Having a low bar pass rate benefits the present members of the State Bar (attorneys).  Having fewer attorneys allows practicing attorneys to charge unreasonably high legal fees. It is in their best interest to keep the pass rate low.

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3. Family law attorneys chase the richest clients. To attract the rich clients, you need to invest in your practice. Attorneys lease fancy offices with big conference rooms, free water and a lot of support personnel. They have expensive websites and videos. They spend a lot of money to advertise. All this costs money (but doesn't help the client). The attorney has to charge high rates to everyone to cover these expenses. 

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4. The system of billing attorneys use to charge their clients is called "billable hours" - and this system allows family law attorneys to overbill and charge excessive fees.