Patrick Slaughter

Am I going to work with you?

Sometimes. Sometimes, you’ll work with another attorney from the firm. Remember that part where I said I respect your time and money? I meant that. If all your case requires is the filing of some paperwork, then you’ll work with another attorney who’s overseen by me, because that will save you some bucks. If your case involves going to trial, then you best believe I’ll be right there with you.

Are you gonna be a bulldog?

Have you ever MET a bulldog? They’re the dopiest creatures on earth. They can’t even give birth without assistance because the puppies’ heads are too darn big. Trust me: you don’t want a bulldog.

You also don’t want a pit bull, a German shepherd, a Rottweiler, a shark, a bear, a wolverine, or any other supposedly vicious animal you can find at the zoo. You know why? Because when you’re so focused on fighting, you forget how to listen. My job is to get you through this process with as little stress and damage as possible. If I’m out there swinging my fists at every turn, I’m not going to be able to do that.

I’ve got a lot of tricks up my sleeve – see what I did there? – and I’ll pull ‘em out when necessary. I can get down in the dirt if I have to, but I’ve found that it’s usually better to try a little honey before vinegar. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll throw down with the best of them. One of my favorite saying is, If I have to go to trial, I’m going to fight like I’m the third monkey on the ramp to the Ark and it just started to rain.

Do you charge a lot for family law services?

Am I the most expensive lawyer? No. Am I the least expensive lawyer? NO. But trust me when I say that when it comes to a divorce, you don’t want to go bargain basement hunting. There’s some things worth paying for, and a lawyer is one of those things.

But before you get nervous, let me tell you how we work over here.

1. We tell you up front what are fees are, so you won’t get any surprises later.
2. We’ll sign a contract with you regarding those fees, so you know what’s expected from you AND from us.
3. If it’s less expensive to have an associate or staff member do something – like submitting paperwork – we’ll do that, so you’re not paying top dollar for things that don’t need to be handled by the principal attorney.
4. We bill phone calls in 6-minute increments instead of 15-minute, 30-minute, or 60-minute increments, because we don’t think it’s fair to bill you for an hour’s work when it took us 2 minutes to answer your question.

Are you going to get me everything I want in my divorce?

Nope – no one is. There’s an old saying that a good divorce settlement leaves both parties a little unhappy. Why? Because it forced both people to compromise.

My team and I are ALWAYS going to look out for your best interests, but your best interests don’t equal “I got everything I wanted” most of the time. Are there exceptions? Sure – but there aren’t many. I can’t think of a single example of a client getting full custody AND keeping the house and all the money AND getting child support and alimony. It just doesn’t work like that.

When something is really, truly important to you – so important that you’d be willing to give up almost everything else just to have this one thing – then of course we’re going to fight to get it for you. But we want you to go into this process with your eyes open, okay? We’ll do our best to get you as much as we can, but unless your ex is a convicted serial killer doing consecutive life sentences, you may need to adjust your expectations a bit. We promise, though, to discuss what that means for you during a consultation, so you can be prepared from Day One.