Online Divorce Lawyer DIY FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

$397. That’s it. There’s nothing else. Stop looking. There are no ups or extras. Apologies, but you cannot pay us more. Don’t even ask!

Regrettably, yes.  

Divorce is a business that went online easily and as early as 1999.

Because the unqualified online divorce mill could be anywhere in the world and because your state’s laws and consumer fraud regulations don’t apply to them if they are outside your state, they came to realize that they can do almost anything they want to you and your case. You have very little, if any, chance to resolve most frauds that arise.

When the con-men in the unlicensed divorce mill business see any attempt to name and shame them, all they do is put up another 2 or 3 so-called “online divorce review” sites, which are owned by the divorce mill they recommend. As a result, unsuspecting divorce consumers are tricked into hiring what they think is a reputable online divorce company.

Until Online Divorce Lawyer DIY launched, the online divorce industry was completely unregulated, unqualified, unlicensed  and dangerous to the legal and economic health of the California uncontested divorce consumer.

You now have a Best of Both Worlds option for your own uncontested divorce in California. In fact, Online Divorce Lawyer offers you 2 options:

1. a flat $397 DIY package that fully prepares ALL of your divorce docs, including a Marital Settlement Agreement. These are completed state  AND local county docs ready to file at court. You would file your own docs at court and have your spouse served by a trusty friend or relative. We provide full instructions. Filing and serving costs you ZERO. Or you can use our recommended e-filer, directlegal.com, who e-files at $20 per filing (e-filing is currently available in 42 out of 58 counties) and also handles process service in California at $105-$195, depending on the location. Directlegal is also part of a nationwide network of process servers that handles process service in the rest of the country at higher fees.
2. a panel of savvy and experienced Online Divorce Lawyers who offer you our Premium service, which consists of you hiring one of our Online Divorce Lawyers to provide you an unbundled doc prep and review package with legal advice and guidance. All Online Divorce Lawyers have multiple unbundled packages that handle kids, property/debt, filing at court, serving  papers on your spouse and other services that are available at your sole discretion. Each Online Divorce Lawyer is an independently owned law firm that sets its own fees, but packages start at $700-$1000. Online Divorce Lawyers use our software to prep all docs.

Bear in mind that all Online Divorce Lawyers are independently owned and operated law firms.  As such, each Online Divorce Lawyer determines what’s included in the unbundled packages of legal services they offer and the fees to be charged for each package.

However, generally you will find that most Online Divorce Lawyers have recognized the wisdom of offering competitive unbundled fees, often in the range of  $700-$1900, depending on kids, property, debt and other factors.   

This is a competitive range of fees when you consider that there are two distinct ranges of fees charged by non-lawyer divorce mills.

The cheap con-men divorce mills who have absolutely no idea what they are doing charge in the range of $300-$450.  Many quote a “complete” fee of $169 to $299, but then they add monthly fees that can be any amount, according to their Terms of Use. They hit your credit card every month until you cancel and they always leave one important document out of each batch of legal docs so that the court will reject your filing and the con-men get paid for more months.  This group also engages in aggressive up-selling of additional “premium” or “expedite” packages for $199+. If you read the Better Business Bureau and TrustPilot complaints of these online divorce con-men you will discover that many consumers felt threatened that “something” would happen to their cases if they did not purchase the “premium” package.

This group of “cheap” divorce mills can easily upsell you to $400-$500. That’s not cheap when you consider they don’t know what they are doing.

The second group of non-lawyer divorce mills does good work but charges you from $400 to $4200.  They are also outrageous up-sellers of additional mostly un-needed services.

Most Online Divorce Lawyers are in the $700 to $1500 range per case for a California uncontested case on an unbundled basis – where you only use and pay for the services dictated by the facts of your case. They will have an unbundled package, with a flat fee, that suits both the facts of your California uncontested divorce as well as your budget. 

So Online Divorce Lawyer fees are highly competitive compared to the two unlicensed divorce mill groups and much more reasonable when compared to the old-fashioned traditional $7500-$10000+ divorce lawyer who will not even tell you that you do NOT need a full-service representation if your case is simple and uncontested.

And that traditional lawyer doesn’t even offer online divorce because he knows that online divorce means cost reduction.  He can’t charge you $7500+ if you’re even thinking about saving money. He only wants to scare you into thinking you need full representation at $7500+ no matter what.

The Online Divorce Lawyer range of fees gets you a strategy session (usually 30 minutes), a legal rights checkup, legal advice about your case, full and complete preparation and review of all your documentation, including your Marital Settlement Agreement, and usually some specific number of follow-up calls or emails of a certain duration.

You also get the “insurance policy” of having completely scalable legal services available from a local lawyer who already knows your case – should the case blow up or should some other problems develop and additional legal services become necessary – always with your full advance knowledge, at your sole option and always with you knowing the costs up front.

The vastly increased value of such an offer, compared to the risk of using an unlicensed divorce mill, an outrageously expensive divorce mill or a traditional full-service lawyer when full representation is not needed makes Online Divorce Lawyer Premium an attractive proposition for a savvy California divorce consumer.

This is smart divorce for your difficult times.

1. Our online interview has a complete help system that uses videos and help popups that are issue specific. There is a LOT of instruction on your account welcome page as well as on all interview pages.
2. All batch downloads come with our written instructions that have been perfected during the 36,300+ uncontested California divorces that have gone through our software.
3. Grok is available on every page of your account. You can ask Grok any question regarding California uncontested divorce. Grok is still in beta-testing, but we are very pleased so far with Grok’s abilities and insights. We find him to be a little slow in his responses, but we have tweaked Grok’s response time down under 20 seconds. S/he’s not fast, but s/he’s very good and available 24/7.
4. Expert human support is available during regular business hours at 1-888-NETDIVORCE.

We tell you that we offer 2 pricing options that are quite different: (1) our flat $397 fee for DIY with no ups or extras ever – where we prepare ALL of your divorce docs and you handle your own court filing and service of docs on your spouse by your trusty friend or relative (with our excellent written instructions); and (2) our Online Divorce Lawyer Premium service where you don’t hire us but instead hire one of our panel of experienced Online Divorce Lawyers who use our software to prepare your docs and they will provide you a flat fee unbundled package of review, advice and guidance services you select starting at $700-$1000.

But, if you think about it, there’s really a hidden third option that may be the best. Buy our $397 DIY package and then hire our closest Online Divorce Lawyer on a consultative basis however many times you need to, based on the circumstances and natural progression of your case.

So for example, let’s say there’s a question or two about retirement plan division right after your spouse has been served. Call 1-800-DIVORCE and speak to your closest Online Divorce Lawyer.  Tell him or her the issue and tell him or her you have an Online Divorce Lawyer account. With your consent, we can flip a couple of switches in our control panel and that lawyer has full access to your case data using his Online Divorce Lawyer password. When you’re finished with the consultation, tell us and we flip that switch back to you alone.

And sure, it will cost you some money for that consultation. It could cost $200-$250 for a 30-45 minute phone consultation. It just depends on what’s involved.

And if you never need to use that available consultation, that’s the very best outcome because you’ve got your whole case prepared for $397 and you had the value of the availability of consultation, and it cost you ZERO. You’re welcome.