Article on "Modern Divorce Alternatives"

As many internet users already know, you can find anything online… including alternatives to high priced lawyers and ways to do your own divorce. We will talk about these alternatives by explaining how each one works and how much money you will save/spend. Given the options, you could save anywhere from a couple of hundred to several thousands of dollars (depending on your particular divorce situation).

Let’s start out simple and assume that you have an uncontested divorce (often referred to as “agreed divorce” or “divorce as friends”). Where there are no children involved, no spouses in the military, and no major division of property. In a situation like that, you could find blank forms online and fill them out yourself. However, that would be a very lengthy and unsafe approach as it is impractical, time consuming, and next to impossible to find all up to date, state specific, and court approved forms online for free. Not to mention that without prior paralegal experience, it would be extremely complicated to complete the forms yourself correctly.

That brings us to our next and probably widely known option for do it yourself divorce. We see them all the time in office supply stores and book stores. They are called divorce kits and cost around 50-100 dollars. They generally come with blank forms and instructions on completing them. Note however, that even the most expensive of these divorce kits contain generic forms only. So state/county specific forms are not included and neither are instructions on finding them. Those are the kind of problems you will deal with when using a divorce kit to do your divorce.

The next option is to use a divorce service. This is a method that has become more popular in the recent years as a result of nationwide increases in attorney fees and expenses. A divorce service is often operated by paralegals and serves as a helping hand in the divorce process. At a cost of about 200 – 300 dollars, they assemble and fill out all the divorce forms for you after collecting your information in the form of a questionnaire or interactive online form. Many Divorce Services allow you to contact them with questions and explore your options. Note however, that “non-lawyer divorce services” are unauthorized to give legal advice. They also don’t represent you in court like an attorney would. Instead you are given instructions on what to do with the forms (usually just sign and file), how to serve your spouse, and how to represent yourself in court.

The third option is to go through a mediator. However, since mediators often outsource the actual work to divorce service companies (mentioned above), there isn't much to say about them other than they are usually only slightly less expensive than divorce lawyers and you get to talk to them face to face. Sometimes a mediator can help the spouses work out the terms of the divorce. But a mediator will not represent either in court due to the face that he or she is supposed to be a neutral party.

In conclusion, we have found that for uncontested (agreed) divorces, the Divorce Service approach offers the best benefit to cost ratio. Take California for example. Over 160,000 divorces are filed annually…60% are now done without lawyers according to Ed Sherman in "How to do Your Own Divorce In California" (published by Nolo Press).

by Douglas Spring