Hiring an attorney is never an easy or cheap thing. However, regardless of whether you are going through a complex divorce or a simple modification of an existing order, the expense and risk involved in not hiring an attorney (no less the right attorney for you) to help you through one of the most critical moments of your life by far outweighs the legal fees.

First, the laws involved are lengthy and complex. Just like no layperson could possibly understand how to successfully perform even a "routine" heart surgery, no layperson can be reasonably expected to understand all the tricks and turns involved in the average family law case. Even highly-successful attorneys who practice law in other areas should hire a family law attorney to handle their own family law matters due to the nuances contained within the Texas Family Code and within each local county's local rules and standards of practice.

Second, knowing the law does not mean you will prevail or even that you will receive the benefit of your rights under the law. The critical skills of an attorney only barely begin with knowing the law. Learning how to prepare a case, how to discover (investigate) relevant facts, how to budget scarce legal resources, how to negotiate with opposing parties, and how to present a case in court are generally skills that only experienced attorneys possess.

Third, most parties are (hopefully) going through only their first divorce, ever. The experience of a counselor who has gone through this process dozens of times before can help place the current matter in context and arrive at a more workable solution. Even in the preferable situation where the parties do not want a drawn out battle and have successfully negotiated an agreement in concept, people going through a divorce, custody battle, or adoption should take advantage of the wealth of experience of their attorneys to help make sure that the agreement is both legally and pragmatically feasible. If it is not feasible, experienced attorneys usually can craft something that will make the initial agreement-in-principle work. Experienced attorneys can also help reign in outrageous demands or help make sure that one party's conflict-aversion does not end up significantly undermining that party's rights or interests.

Fourth, one of the principal benefits of hiring an attorney, in general, is to delegate the legal struggle to someone who knows how to handle it so you simply don't need to worry about it. Doing so might not relieve the stress and emotional turmoil inherent in a divorce (the personal side of it), but it will let the attorney handle the legal wrangling for you so that does not add to the already-difficult non-legal burdens of divorce. Dealing with the emotional turmoil is overwhelming enough; dealing with the legal stresses can only make it worse.

Fifth, some people wrongly believe that a judge will take care of their interests and make sure they receive a "fair trial" even if they represent themselves. The problem with that myth is that our system of justice is based on an advocacy model in which the judge's role is not to investigate or look out for the parties, themselves, but instead to passively listen to both sides and make an impartial decision based on the best arguments each party makes. (Going to court is nothing like the false impressions left by Judge Judy or other television judges who are hired for entertainment purposes, not to reach fair decisions; moreover, keep in mind that the entertainment value of such shows comes from watching how ineffective such people are in stammering their way through what they believed was a "perfect" defense or an "unquestionable" claim.) Although most judges do pride themselves on making the best, fairest ruling possible, the system is premised upon each party presenting their best case possible in order to allow the judge to arrive at that ruling. If either side does not have legal counsel, then that side is unlikely to present the best case possible to the judge, making it more likely that the result will be skewed in the other party's favor. Indeed, some judges also get so fed up with pro se litigants that, despite their best efforts, they inevitably rule against them on the ultimate issues under the guise of being especially polite and lenient on scheduling, evidentiary, or preliminary issues.

Finally, and more generally, studies show that most pro se parties in a divorce never achieve the sense of "closure" that they received a "fair deal" through their case, even if the pro se party actually did receive a fair result. Because of this lack of confidence, pro se litigants frequently try to challenge the agreed-upon Decree with which they never felt comfortable, in the first place, and they frequently end up hiring an attorney to do so, anyway. This lack of confidence and assurance in the fairness of the final Decree also often causes pro se litigants to hold onto the bitterness of a divorce longer than otherwise.

Handling your own legal representation significantly adds to the stress and burdens inherent in any life-changing events such as divorce, child custody, child support, adult guardianship, or any other family law matter. Most divorce parties have an unfortunately-acute appreciation for the sentiment of wishing they had gotten it right the first time, and thus would be wise to not carry that same mistake into the divorce process, as well.