Preparing to Meet with a Divorce Lawyer: What to Bring to Your First Meeting
As you prepare to get your divorce started, meeting with your Las Vegas divorce lawyer to figure out the next best steps for proceeding can be essential. However, in order to figure out what the next steps are – as well as whether options like mediation may be better suited for you, a lawyer will first need to get a clear idea of your marital situation. Generally, this comes from talking to you and finding out more about the marital financial circumstances, children, etc.
So, to facilitate this process, below is a checklist of items that can be helpful to prepare for your first meeting with a divorce lawyer, as these items can provide the info a lawyer needs to get your case started.
Personal Info to Prepare When Meeting a Divorce Lawyer
- Your personal info, including your social security number (SSN) and current contact info
- Your spouse’s personal info, including his/her name, birthdate, SSN and current contact info
- Your child’s (or children’s) personal info, including the child’s (or children’s) name(s), age(s) and SSN(s)
- Employment info for you and your spouse, including contact info for the respective employers
- Proof of Nevada residency
- General marital info, including the date and location of the marriage, as well as the names/contact info of any therapists seen during the marriage and the nature of the problems/issues in the marriage.
Financial Items & Info to Prepare
- Salary info for you and your spouse
- Banking info, including a list of all joint and separate bank accounts (including savings bonds, stocks and mutual funds)
- Debt info, including a list of all open lines of credit held jointly and/or separately and the balances due for each line of credit
- Retirement account info, including info for other types of related investment accounts
- Insurance policy info, including all life insurance policies you and your spouse have, as well as how much each policy is worth
- Property/real estate info, including a listing of all real estate owned jointly or separately, as well as the estimated value of each piece of property and the balance on any mortgages associated with those properties.
While a divorce lawyer may need additional information moving forward, bringing as much of this info as possible to your initial consultation with an attorney can help:
- A lawyer provide you with better answers about what to expect moving forward
- Get your case started far more efficiently than otherwise may be possible.