Online Divorce Lawyer | Build the Ultimate Uncontested Divorce Practice

The Uncontested Divorce Problem

A Little History is Necessary

Pre-Internet, uncontested divorce paid the rent, and a lot more, for most lawyers in small firms. In those days, uncontested divorce was estimated at 70% of the market. Further, divorce consumers had no other choice but to hire a lawyer.

To those very few of us in divorce software in the ’80s and ’90s, it was obvious that uncontested divorce was made for computerization. That was why I wrote what I believe to be the world’s first divorce software (for California) in 1983-84.

In 1984, I acquired 1-800-DIVORCE.

Using 1-800-DIVORCE, that software and the fees it permitted me to charge, 1986 was my first $1M year. That’s $2.8M in today’s money. All future years were million dollar years until I retired from retail divorce in June 1998 in order to convert my software to the web.

In 1989, I was hired an average of 15 times a day for all 365 days. My fee for an uncontested in ’89 was $250. Do the arithmetic. All you need is the software and an investment-based marketing advantage you control and that no one can duplicate. That is still a true statement.

When the Internet arrived, it was equally clear that all business verticals, not just those within the legal services industry, that could go online would do so.  

When that happened – in March, 1999, when I launched the world’s first online divorce site at divorceweb.com, American Bar Associations were like deer in the headlights. The California Bar did nothing. It failed to act to protect the economic interests of its members. It failed to discharge any duty to protect the public.

I know this. I made a presentation to two older gentlemen from the Bar at the 1999 annual meeting in Long Beach. They had no idea what the Internet was, let alone what online divorce meant to members of the Bar or to the divorcing public.

By contrast, in the UK, where I’m a member of the Bar, the Bar Association and Law Society embraced online divorce from the very beginning and now have a thriving and safe industry of solicitors offering online divorce. In 2021, online divorce became mandatory for all divorces in the UK.

Because no online divorce vacuum came into existence in the UK , online divorce con artists from the Ukraine, Dubai, India and Mexico could not fill that vacuum. They did in the US. 

Those online divorce mill charlatans, despite their pervasive incompetence and fraud, did incredibly well for 20+ years. Many thousands of unsuspecting California uncontested divorce consumers had their legal and economic interests harmed as a result.

And somehow, District Attorney fraud complaints and UPL actions were not very effective in Mumbai or Ukraine.

The Current Playing Field

There are now even larger amounts of money to be made in the uncontested divorce market by those providing high quality automated work at realistic unbundled flat fees. This situation exists for three basic reasons:

• The terrible business model of the original online divorce con men has finally caught up with them. Consumer complaints to newer institutions such as Yelp and Trust Pilot and older agencies such as the Better Business Bureau have taken their toll. For several years, as one of the con men’s domain names went down in flames of complaint, they would have 2 or 3 more domain names warmed up and ready to go. But there is a finite number of good online divorce domain names available. Modern fraud reporting tools are now much better. Also, consumers have become much more savvy. Uncontested divorce consumers are aware they have options.
• A second category of extremely expensive non-lawyer online divorce providers came into being around 2015. It provided a welcome alternative to the con men, but it has its own built-in problems. These are California Legal Document Assistant outfits. They do quality work, but their fees and aggressive up-selling are predatory. This category includes Hello Divorce, It’s Over Easy/Divorce.com and AIdivorce.legal. These are all non-lawyers but it is no coincidence that they are all fronted by hot-shot Hollywood-type lawyers. They all have “teaser”  packages in the $275-$400 range but none of those packages will actually get anyone a divorce. They either cover only the first filing batch of docs or they include no client support at all. They are intended only to get-them-in-the-door to allow the aggressive up-selling to begin. The intended fees are their $1500-$4500 packages. Again, these are all non-lawyers. 
• Traditional divorce lawyers en masse continue not to compete in any effective manner for uncontested cases. They don’t have online divorce software. Most are clueless about how to scale a business and actually think that don’t want online divorce software. They consider uncontested divorce to be somehow unworthy and unprofitable. They have an illogical one-size-fits-all high retainer fee/billable hour treadmill they continue to offer to all prospects, contested or uncontested. It’s all they’ve got. They score a $7500 uncontested every few months by scaring the crap out of someone and they consider that a success.

From a broader geographic perspective, my late-2023 analysis of 904 randomly selected family lawyer websites nationwide revealed that only 24 of those websites contained actual offers of low-cost, flat fee unbundled packages for pro-se uncontested divorce. More of those websites mentioned uncontested divorce, but only 24 (or 2.7%) had actual uncontested divorce packages on offer.

As far as I could tell, NONE of those 24 uncontested divorce sites had actual online divorce software. None of them showed their software, leading me to believe they’re just doing the old cut-and-paste routine.

Furthermore, during the C-19 era, more estimates now place the uncontested market as high as 80% of the entire divorce market.  Fewer consumers want to litigate or mediate.

Accordingly, it appears that there exists an actual choice for business-savvy lawyers between being in the 97% of lawyers who compete for 20% of the market and being in the 3% of lawyers who compete, mostly against poorly positioned non-lawyers, for almost 80% of the market. 

Of course, those choices are not mutually exclusive. If you still retain an attraction for the higher stresses and lower profitability of litigated, negotiated and mediated divorces, you can do both contested and uncontested. It’s not a question of which path to pursue. It’s a question as to why you are not pursuing both.

The Uncontested Divorce Solution

Online Divorce Lawyer changes all of the above. For the first time an out-of-the-box fully automated uncontested divorce software exists exclusively for California lawyers.

Online Divorce Lawyer is a Best of Both Worlds option for uncontested divorce consumers.  It offers the convenience, cost-reduction, reduced stress and self-empowerment of online divorce PLUS the security and peace of mind of having a licensed divorce lawyer on their team. All of that plus fully scalable flat-fee unbundled packages to accommodate any situation and budget as well as any problems or additional service requirements that may arise in their cases.

Imagine how savvy, competitive, cost-effective, problem-solving, modern and just plain irresistible you will appear to your targeted uncontested divorce clients.  You will be compared by them to the $1500-$4500 non-lawyer and $7500 traditional lawyer alternatives!

Could you construct several interlocking flat-fee packages ranging from maybe $797 (no kids or property/ doc-review only) to $997 (kids and/or property) to maybe $1997 (with an MSA)? Could your marketing de-position those $1500-$4500 up-selling non-lawyers and traditional $7500 full representation lawyers?

And this is profitable work.  The first California lawyer into our system now handles 12-15 uncontesteds per month at either $695, $995 or $1495. He advises that his average case time from beginning to end is less than 1.5 hours per case, including his 20-minute case strategy session.

Strategically, Online Divorce Lawyer enables you to get more uncontested divorces in the door with your lower fee doc-review package. Get your limited representation contracts in order so that your clients are always well informed. Construct your scalable uncontested packages to be predictably and ethically triggered by specific events in the case – such as a Response being filed or a need for a QDRO, Request for Order, modification, etc.

Online Divorce Lawyer works in all 58 California counties. Accordingly, it enables you, for the first time,  to create and maintain a statewide virtual uncontested divorce machine. 

Online Divorce Lawyer is a unique new category of legal service. Those don’t come along often.  Everything that is old is now new. 

All that is missing now is your understanding of the historical causative components of the problems described above, both for your firm and for your target uncontested divorce clients, not to mention your recognition of the complete and exclusive solution offered to your firm herein.

When he was asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton famously responded, “Because that’s where the money is.” Uncontested divorce and online divorce and 1-800-DIVORCE are just like that.

If that’s a big enough idea for you, please review the information below and either hit us up here or call Peter at 1-800-PETEROH