The Most Overlooked Fact About Divorce Procedures Revealed

For many divorcing couples seeking to save a little money on their divorce, it is vital what service they utilize to prepare their divorce papers. With the modern technology available, there are lots of services around for the preparation of "uncontested" divorces, which is crucial that you have as much knowledge as it can be before committing to anyone of these services.

A popular choice of divorce service for lots of individuals is to use an "online" service. The upside is the fact that they are usually very inexpensive. The downside is that you basically do all of the work. Sure, you have access to their proprietary forms software, but it's you who is basically filling out your own forms, downloading, and printing them, to file and serve yourself. This sort 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 and also the court rejects them, it may cost you more in time and aggravation that you should correct them than it would have cost to have used another kind of service to do it right within the first place.

Another divorce service option will be 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 and also the book should at the minimum be tailored to the region through which the divorce is taking place. In addition, the counties within a state do differ somewhat within their procedures, and you may find it quite frustrating to get your papers to match with the local way of doing things even though you could be using the state-wide forms. Again, with this service option, you are doing all the work but paying nothing out of pocket (and giving yourself a legal education at the same time).

As a step away from the "do it yourself" approach, lots of people try using a legal assistant divorce service. In California, these people are called "legal document assistants" and also are regulated under Business and Professions Code section 6400 et seq. As the freelance legal assistants may call themselves other names, for example a divorce assistant or a divorce paralegal, if they are a person other than a lawyer offering forms preparation services for a fee, they're subject to the code. When selecting a legal document assistant it is very important to ensure these people are truly licensed and regulation compliant. Many are not compliant with the law and have not met even the minimum educational requirements or possess the state mandated consumer protections in area to perform as legal document assistants. Even if you have a licensed legal document assistant, they frequently (unwittingly or not) give legal advice, which is the unlicensed practice of law, a crime. It is natural to seek advice during a divorce and a lot more often than not, a legal document assistant will succumb to the temptation through giving the advice, custody rights even though they might say it is just "friendly" advice and not "legal" advice (as if the label made an impact). Legal document assistants are meant to fill out the forms in accordance with your direction. No more and no less. Legal advice is something they can't give, as well as 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 real attorney to organize the parties' uncontested divorce papers. Let's be honest, a big part 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 choice for an uncontested divorce. Having an attorney preparing the divorce papers, one need not be worried about the unlicensed practice of law. At the same, time, an attorney document preparer should understand the law and can draft the parties' marital settlement agreement in accordance with current divorce law. Many attorneys offer document preparation only services for prices comparable to or slightly more than what you might pay a legal document preparer. An attorney must also be able to do all the legwork in filing and serving the documents so that the parties should have to go to court.

Out of all of the above divorce service options, having an attorney preparing your divorce documents can be the most cost effective solution, as you should have the best quality of work for only a slight increase in price. However not all attorneys shall offer this service, many do.