Kids First Co-Parenting with Dr. Royster

Beyond the “Best Lawyer” List: Questions to Hire the Right Fit

• Dr. Karalynn Royster • Season 1 • Episode 19

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We walk through how to decide if your attorney is the right fit by focusing on your next 60 to 90 days, your case’s unique needs, and the communication systems that keep you steady. We compare junior and senior counsel, map specialties to real problems, and share steps to repair or replace without chaos.

• reframing “best attorney” as best for your needs
• defining immediate goals like enforcement or modification
• weighing junior associate responsiveness against partner experience
• matching attorney specialty to case complexity and risk
• assessing responsiveness, urgency protocols, and evidence workflows
• spotting realistic strategy versus empty promises
• steps to repair the relationship before switching counsel
• using community, templates, and checklists to interview well

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The best way you can support the show is by following, rating, and reviewing wherever you listen to podcasts and by sharing it with another mom who could use the support
You can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook at LearnwithLittle House, where I share daily tips and encouragement for moms raising kids through high conflict divorce
If you’re ready to go deep and get more tools, scripts, personalized support, and coaching, come join us inside the Kids First co-parenting community

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Kids First Co-Parenting Podcast, the podcast for smart, intentional, millennial moms raising resilient kids after separation and divorce. I'm Dr. Carolyn Royster, a child psychologist coach, and a mom. After thousands of therapy hours with kids caught in the middle of high-conflict households, I'm here to help moms like you do it differently. From peaceful co-parenting to total chaos, I've got you. Here we talk boundaries, regulation, and how to raise a great kid, even if your ex is beyond difficult. We blend science with real life, and as always, keep the focus where it matters on raising great kids. This is Kids First, Co-Parenting. Hello and welcome to 2026. We are diving into a new episode today, all about finding the right attorney. I mean, as many of you know, the right attorney can make or break your case. And you really are putting so much trust into this person and so much money. It's a very hard decision. And we're going to talk a little bit about the things that you need to know when you pick an attorney and how that can be helpful for you. You know, I've heard this phrase of choosing a good attorney in a high-conflict co-parenting case is like picking a pilot mid-flight. At the end of this episode, my goal is for you to know how to figure out if your attorney is a good fit for you, presumably, hopefully, the one you've already hired. But if you're going into this thinking, okay, I need to hire someone really great. Or if you're in your case and you're like, I don't know how this is working, the reason that we're talking about this this week is that this is a theme that has come up quite a bit in our co-parenting membership. Uh the moms and I have been talking a lot about this. And of course, inside the membership, it's individualized questions and support. And we have whole templates and worksheets on how to figure this out for yourself and interview people and how to keep track of that. And I know all of them. So we're able to say, like, look, you really need this type of attorney, you really need this type of person. Um, I would really like for this, or how about we try this before you decide to make a shift? I need you to look for this person. Taking a little bit of that from our community and bringing it to all of you. I hope you find this very helpful. As always, please share widely and leave us a review if you do find it useful. You know, the first point that I want to talk with you about today is that there are lots of great professionals out there. It doesn't mean that they're great for you. Everybody hears when they go through divorce, like you better get a great attorney, right? You have a really hard case. And I wouldn't say everybody, but a lot of people. And just know that just because someone tells you this is the best person does not mean that they're the best for you. And this is true, you know, I'm I practice as a psychologist as well. And I think about this all the time. Like, I'm really good at my job. That doesn't mean I'm really good for everyone, both as a coach and as a therapist. And honestly, the really good professionals, whether that's psychologists or attorneys or coaches, are people that know when they're not a really good fit for a client as well. People that are very good at their jobs know when they're not the right match for someone and we'll tell you that. But that takes time and practice. So just really releasing yourself from if you hear from someone like, this is the absolute best attorney, you know, in our area, doesn't mean that they're the best for you. What you want to be thinking about is how do I match and find an attorney that's good at solving the problem that I need solved right now? And in some ways, it's helpful to think about that in the next, you know, 60 to 90 days. Lots of guides will say like 30 days, but not a lot gets solved in 30 days in the family court system. However, what is it, what's the issue that I need in the next quarter or the next six months? Are we looking at temporary orders? Are we looking at enforcement of orders? Are we looking to modify the original plan? Like what is the issue? And use that, you know, maybe even write that out to think and guide your decision making. Maybe that's at the top of your page. I need help with enforcement of the plan, or I need someone to help me write new orders. And that becomes one of your guiding questions when you're interviewing people. We're gonna take a short break so that I can talk to you a little bit about the membership. So if you need support with your specific attorney situation, or you know you have a really great attorney, but they're saying, listen, you need a parenting coach. If you want a community that can talk through these issues with you, people that know your case, who really get it, who understand you, who see you for everything that you're going through, then you really need to seriously think about the membership. We always link the membership in show notes. We meet once a week where everybody talks. We have all kinds of lessons, tools, templates, and guides. And I would love to have you inside it. It's called the Kids First Co-Parenting Membership. It's a very affordable monthly membership. You cancel anytime. Check it out in the show notes. When we're thinking about attorneys, we just had this discussion the other day. Uh, I think of it very similar to when I'm thinking about teachers for my kids, therapists in the mental health world. Anytime you're dealing, you know, with your accountant, with your housekeeper, like there's so many things where you really have to make this decision between someone that's very green and maybe is newer to the field versus someone who has tons of experience. Now, when you think a little bit about this, especially with attorneys, it really is quite a big decision because typically associate or junior attorneys have much more affordable rates than, say, a partner or a founding partner or someone that's pretty high up in the firm, maybe the owner, et cetera. There's pros and cons to every level of expertise, in my opinion. I mean, I think that junior, more green, freshly graduated types of folks are often really good because they've just learned like the newest, most cutting-edge stuff. They tend to be very responsive. I kind of think of them as like hungry. They're hungry to build their client base, they're hungry to help you, they're hungry to prove themselves, they're hungry to achieve their goals, right? Attorneys are like go-getters. And a lot of them are really good people that really want to help people. If you get that newer person, you know, those are all really strong. Uh, I was gonna say strong strengths, which is redundant, but those are all really strengths in your favor. Also, the other piece that sometimes people don't know is most of those newer associates are gonna be partnered with a partner and have access to more senior attorneys, to collaboration groups, to the rest of the firm for tougher situations and cases. And so, in a lot of ways, it can be a real positive thing because you're getting somebody with more time, maybe a little bit more affordable rate, someone who's really responsive and eager with the skill level of someone perhaps a little bit more advanced as well. Right. Another way to think about this is like even the best, most seasoned attorney who doesn't call you back or doesn't respond to your emails is not the best or most seasoned for you. And you kind of have to think about that. Now, conversely, someone with more experience has exactly what I just said, and something we really like. Like we like the people that have been in the trenches. We need people that really know their system, their community, their court system, their county, um, knows the other attorney, knows how they work, knows what they do, what they don't do well. The ability to bring expertise and experience to the case is also a major point in their favor. I think of this a lot in my training to be a psychologist. You read one thing, you learn all about it in school, you practice it in school, you practice it under supervision and in a clinic. And then to experience it in real time in your life or in your office is an entirely different experience. And experiencing things more than once is a gift and is a very, very valuable gift. When you talk about people that have had hundreds of cases like yours and seen it go all kinds of different ways, you know, there's a very good reason to think that that could be very helpful for you. However, sometimes those attorneys are really expensive, they're not accessible to everyone, or they're booked for the next, you know, they're not taking new clients, or you're conflicted out from working with them. You know, there's a million reasons, or quite frankly, it's just not a good interpersonal match. You're like, I don't like this person, or I can never hear back from them. You know, I know this person is really good. I don't know that they're really good for me, going back to our earlier point. Or I know this person is supposedly the best, but every time I talk to them, I feel stupid, or I feel like they're not listening, or they don't really get it, or they're the best at this type of divorce case, not necessarily my type of divorce case. Attorneys, just like psychologists, just like mental health professionals and coaches, we have specialties. We have people that we could work with. Um, and then we have people that were like, yeah, this is my jam. This is my bread and butter, this is what I love to do, this is what I do every day. You're not the first person, even today, that has told me something like this. Now, there's pros and cons to that, as we've been talking about this whole time. And so you want to find that person that you click with and that has a specialty in what you're doing. If you're if you're a super high asset family, you have trusts and lots, lots of wealth accumulated, good on you, love that for you. You probably want a divorce attorney that has dealt with other people in your income. If you're someone that's doing a pretty collaborative divorce, you do not need somebody that specializes in coercive control, domestic violence, and abuse, right? Like you don't, you don't need to pay for that level of expertise. If your kids have special needs in regards to their medical or mental health needs, you best be asking your attorney questions around have you worked with cases like this? Do you understand the complexities of XYZ? Right. You know, and of course everybody thinks they're special, but there are some kind of these broad categories that it is wise. We have folks in the membership that have parties across different states. If your attorney only works in one state and doesn't really understand how to manage out of state, which most of them do, but but perhaps not, then that's not going to be the right fit for you. Okay. You're just kind of thinking about like what makes our case different or unique. And do I need somebody that really gets that? Or is this something that we can have a reasonably good person working on? The other piece I want to mention here, and we'll do a whole episode on this at another point. I have a dear colleague that specializes in this, is that most of you that listen to this podcast and work with me in the membership or in one-to-ones, most of you are in high conflict difficult dynamics. That is, those are my people. That's who I work with. But there is a whole bunch of the divorce world and divorce cases that can be settled with without high conflict. There are some people, listen to this wild little fact, this little nugget you may not believe because of your situation. There are some people that don't use attorneys. What would that be like? There are some people that use attorneys once, go to mediation, and mediation works. There are people that do what we call collaborative law, which is where you both agree you're not going to go. You don't want to go to court, so you don't go to court. And it ends up saving everybody so much money. I realize, and I want you as a listener to realize that I am talking to a very specific group of people that are needing really good attorneys and are needing people that get these high control, coercive control, high conflict, kids as pawns in the middle dynamics. But lots of people, just so you know, lots of people don't have that dynamic. And I am so happy for them. And I would love for that to be you. We all would love for that to be you. And we know that kids do better when there's less conflict. So for our kids' sake, we want that to be true too. But that's not where a lot of you are. And so just kind of acknowledging that point today, as as I often do. This is our highest selling course. It is not three full days. That's important for you to know. It's across three days, you get three mini lessons. You get videos taught by myself, you get workbooks, you get templates. It's taught by myself, a child psychologist and co-parenting coach. Gives you a little taste of my style, and it's only$19. Check it out in the show notes if you're interested. All right, let's return to how do you find out if this person is a really good fit for you? What are some things that you want to think about? I'd like for you to know about this before, before you pay the retainer. And it's especially hard because sometimes you need to pay for the consultations with folks, which is good, but that's because they might give you advice and kind of give you a little taste of what it's like to work with them. I'm gonna give you a couple of ways to consider fit with an attorney when you're doing these consultations, when you're kind of poking around, asking folks about them, looking at their website, emailing, et cetera. The first is one we've already talked about experience with cases like yours, not just how many years have you been practicing. Do they routinely handle things like substance use, high conflict, false allegations, repeated litigation, CFIs, PREs, enforcement of orders, like whatever it is that remember, we talked about what is it that's kind of unique about your case? Do they have experience with it? You want to listen really carefully to their language. What we're not looking for is canned responses. We're not looking for slogans, we're not looking for the hustle. We're looking for can they really talk the talk? Do they really get it? Do they believe you about what you're talking about? Then we want to think about responsiveness. Like how does it work? What are your what are their systems and expectations for responding to you? How do they respond to you when it's urgent? What counts as urgent? Who do you contact and who's their point person when they're in court, when they're out of town, which they deserve vacations too? What happens? How do they want information delivered to them? And what does that look like? Is it email? Is it phone? Is it bullet points? Is it shared documents? Like, what's gonna work well? If you're talking to someone and they only want you to call them on the phone, but you're not a phone person, that's not gonna work. Again, you're looking for fit. Perhaps you're somebody who really kind of freaks out about things, and then a day or two later you're like, I okay, I kind of blew that out of proportion. How would someone like your attorney respond to that? That'd be a great question. You may say, you know, I tend to be a little bit more of an anxious style person, or I tend to be kind of reactive, or I'm still very much in grief about this, or I'm still very, very angry. How are you gonna support that so we don't make rash decisions? You do want to think about what are their strengths. Are they a litigator? Are they really good at negotiating, you know, or both? The tricky part with high conflict dynamics is it is most helpful to have someone who is good at litigating and can litigate, but approaches it with I don't want to escalate this just to escalate it. I want to escalate this if it needs to be and if it's important. We don't want that like competitive shark dynamic of like, I just love to litigate and I want to litigate like crazy. No, we want them to like be able to do it if they need to, but but ideally, there's lots of steps before that. And then finally, one of the fits to think about is strategy. Are they really helpful? Do you need that helpfulness with strategy? Are they someone that can be like, this is what I want you to do? Is that what you want? Or is this somebody that you want to be able to call when you need them? Okay. Again, this goes back to that like 60, 90 quarterly plan. Like, what's the goal? What are you asking for? What do they need from you in terms of evidence? Are they able to really give it to you straight? It's kind of how I think about it. Like, is this someone that is gonna fill your head with nonsense that they can achieve something that is very unlikely? And how do they handle that? So I personally like when people say things like, this is a long shot, but if it's important to you, like we can do it. I'll try, I'll do my damnedest. But it's possible it may not work out. Like I like a balance of risk versus reward. I like them to tell you, look, we can do this, we can file this motion. This is how it might play out. And you might not like that. And I'll still be here for you. But here's kind of the trade-offs with what you're asking me to do. Or to push you, to say, I don't know that you've thought about this, but I have a lot of knowledge and experience that tells me you need to consider this factor and you need to go after X, Y, and Z. And here's why. And here's why I think it's a doable task. What are we gonna do if it's not a great fit? If you are listening to this episode and you're like, I don't think I have the right person. First step, I would say, is to I kind of think about it a little bit like a dating relationship. You don't just, unless something egregious happens, then you would be like, We're done. But first you're gonna try to amend it. You're gonna See if there's something we can do. We work on our communication. Whatever the issue is, you try to fix it first before you jump ship. The other reason you need to think about this is you've probably invested a decent amount of money in it. It's probably a good idea to make to kind of do your due diligence before, and it's someone that knows your case, and sometimes it can cause delays in what you're doing, right? If you adjust things too early. The first step is to request some sort of meeting, whether you call it a strategy meeting or in your mind, you're like, this is my come to Jesus meeting. It might be like, I need a timeline update. I need to know what's where the status of things are. You want to request that meeting so you can have some dedicated time to talk through what the issue is. Sometimes it's helpful to really write it out ahead of time and consider it. I'm not feeling heard. I don't feel like this is moving quick enough. And you just bring it pretty factually to this person, and you may say something like, I'm frustrated that I email and I don't hear anything back. What can we do differently? And sometimes it's like just a miscommunication. You sent an email, I read it. I'm not an attorney, but maybe as a therapist, like you sent an email, I read it. I it was in between sessions, I logged the information. I didn't respond until you noted or I got it or thank you. But you're thinking, why didn't she respond? Sometimes it's really simple. Like the professional may not know that you wanted a response or may not have seen the question. Maybe the question was kind of, I do often see this with my coaching clients, like the question's sort of buried in the narrative. And then I often do a little coaching around how to phrase those emails in a way that's really clear about what you're needing and asking for. Often it's kind of both people need to adjust. The point is that first you work on your communication. First, you see if this is fixable before you jump ship. Um, and then you definitely want to start thinking about thinking about other folks, starting to interview people. You know, you need to do it with a plan. What I don't want is for you to be really reactive. Like something happens, you got mad, and then you moved on. Because I hear stories a lot where something happens, people are upset with it. And then a little while later, they're like, Yeah, we had that one moment where things didn't go great, or I'm still kind of upset about this, but on the whole, things have been really good. So, you know, to borrow the old phrase, you don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, especially if it's something that you can adjust yourself and or with communication, your attorney can adjust because lots of times they they want to. All right, my friends. This kind of summarizes our how do you know if your attorney is the right fit for you? discussion. And we can have a longer discussion if you guys would find it helpful around what to do when attorneys aren't the right fit, what to do when you're initially finding an attorney. We'll have some attorneys on the podcast this year to talk about more specific nitty-gritty questions. So if you have those, please send them to me. I'd love to hear them. I hope you found this useful. As always, thank you for being here, and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Kids First Co-Parenting. The best way you can support the show is by following, rating, and reviewing wherever you listen to podcasts and by sharing it with another mom who could use the support. You can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook at LearnwithLittle House, where I share daily tips and encouragement for moms raising kids through high conflict divorce. And if you're ready to go deep and get more tools, scripts, personalized support, and coaching, come join us inside the Kids First co-parenting community. You'll find the details at learnwithlittlehouse.com. Until next time, remember, your kids don't need you to be perfect. They just need you to be steady and grounded, and as always, to put them first. Thanks for being here. Just a quick disclaimer. This podcast is for general information and education only. It is not legal advice, it is not mental health treatment, and listening does not create a therapist client relationship. Laws and clinical needs vary, so please consult a licensed professional in your area who can evaluate and help you with your specific situation. And if you are in a dangerous situation or feel unsafe, contact local with domestic violence resources right away.

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