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→Choosing your lawyer
===Choosing your lawyer===
Your choice of lawyer can play an important part in determining how your separation unfolds. Many lawyers are quite open to negotiation, mediation and collaborative negotiation, while a few others see litigation as the only sensible means of resolving a dispute, particularly lawyers who have a reputation as being "bulldogs." Other lawyers tend not to take their duty to respond promptly to correspondence particularly seriously, which will delay things and may result in an unnecessarily large number of interim applications. Still other lawyers see their duty as militantly carrying out their clients' instructions, without supplying much in the way of options or sensible advice as to the likely effect of those instructions.
The best family law lawyers give their clients a common-sense analysis of their situation, based on probable outcomes and their expert knowledge of the law, and encourage their clients to take positions that are objectively reasonable. These lawyers will usually pursue settlement, both before and after litigation has started, and see litigation as a last resort. They are open to negotiation and mediation and other out-of-court processes, although they may prefer a result-oriented, evaluative mediation process rather than lengthier traditional mediation processes.