A Complete Overview Of Divorse Agreements
For many divorcing couples seeking to save a little cash on their divorce, it is very important what service they will use to organize their divorce papers. With the modern technology available, there are several services out there for the preparation of "uncontested" divorces, and it is important to have as much knowledge as possible before committing to any one of these services.
A popular choice of divorce service for many people is to use an "online" service. The upside is the fact that they're usually very affordable. The downside is that you basically do all of the work. Sure, you have access to their proprietary forms software, but it is you who is basically filling out your own forms, downloading, and printing them, to file and serve yourself. This kind of service is affordable, but you are essentially paying a third party for the honor of preparing your own divorce forms with no legal advice. If something is awry with your divorce papers as well as the court rejects them, it may cost you more in time and aggravation that you can correct them than it will have cost to have used another kind of service to do it right in the first place.
Another divorce service option is the "do it yourself" approach. Many divorcing people utilize a self-help book, grab a cup of coffee, and start filling out their own papers. As the books usually give general information, divorces are typically state specific as well as the book should at a minimum be tailored to the state by which the divorce is taking place. On top of that, the counties in a state do differ somewhat within their procedures, and also you could try this out may find it quite frustrating to get your papers to match with the local way of doing things even though you may be using the state-wide forms. Again, with this service option, you are doing all of the work but paying nothing out of pocket (and giving yourself a legal education at the exact same time).
As a step away from the "do it yourself" approach, a lot of men and women try using a legal assistant divorce service. In California, these people are called "legal document assistants" and are regulated under Business and Professions Code section 6400 et seq. As the freelance legal assistants may call themselves other names, such as a divorce assistant or a divorce paralegal, whenever they are a person other than an attorney offering forms preparation services for a fee, they can be subject to the code. When selecting a legal document assistant it is essential to ensure these people are truly licensed and regulation compliant. Many are not compliant with the law and also have not met even the minimum educational requirements or have the state mandated consumer protections in place to perform as legal document assistants. Even when you have a licensed legal document assistant, they frequently (unwittingly or not) give legal advice, which will be the unlicensed practice of law, a crime. It's natural to seek advice during a divorce and a lot more often than not, a legal document assistant will succumb to the temptation by providing the advice, even though they might say it really is just "friendly" advice and not "legal" advice (as if the label made a difference). Legal document assistants are supposed to fill out the forms in line with your direction. No more and no less. Legal advice is something they cannot give, and also the good ones will strictly adhere to that policy and refer you out to a lawyer if necessary. Legal assistants usually do the legwork for you by caring for filing the documents and serving the papers (if necessary), either themselves or through another service like process server.
A last divorce service option that parties may consider is using a genuine attorney to get ready the parties' uncontested divorce papers. After all, a large a component of the cost of divorce will be the actual litigation and not the specific form filling. In the event the parties contemplate a friendly settlement and also have no worries about each others' honesty and accuracy regarding financial disclosures, then an "attorney document preparer" may be a cost effective option for an uncontested divorce. Through an attorney preparing the divorce papers, one need not worry about the unlicensed practice of law. As well, a lawyer document preparer should understand the law and can also draft the parties' marital settlement agreement in accordance with current divorce law. Many attorneys offer document preparation only services for prices comparable to or a little more than what you could pay a legal document preparer. An attorney should also be able to do all of the legwork in filing and serving the documents in order that the parties should have to go to court.
Out of all the above divorce service options, having a lawyer preparing your divorce documents may be the most cost effective solution, as you should have the best quality of work for only a slight increase in price. Although not all attorneys will offer this service, many do.
