Uncontested Divorce California | 1-800-DIVORCE
Uncontested Divorce in California
If you’ve made the challenging private decision to end your marital relationship or domestic partnership in California, California, you need to hope that your case will be an uncontested divorce in California.
An uncontested divorce merely involves a
divorce in which you and your spouse/partner are not (and will not be) contesting any issues – including child custody, visitation, parenting, child assistance, spousal support or the division of property and financial obligation. It
does not need to mean that you are friends or that either of you is happy about the divorce. It simply means that there will not be any court contest in the case. Stated differently, the spouse/partner who did not originally file the case will not file a Response to dispute the case and will not tell the court that there is at least one point in dispute.
An uncontested divorce in California also does not need to suggest that there are definitely no concerns that are not in agreement between you and your spouse/partner. Typically there will be issues in dispute involving the parties in an uncontested case. Nevertheless, they are either minimal issues or at the very least concerns that you and your partner will resolve between you without a dispute being submitted at court by your spouse/partner.
If you do have an uncontested divorce in California, the reason you are in luck is that you will have the ability to take advantage of both of the two ideal uncontested divorce business trends of the last twenty years – online divorce and unbundled legal services. Let’s look at each of those trends with reference to uncontested divorce in California.
Online Divorce in California
Exactly what does online divorce mean? It indicates that you will utilize a safe and secure (encrypted) online connection to access your own password-protected online divorce account to post all of the details in your case from the convenience of your own office or home. You will not be handed the intimidating 30-page hard-copy survey and required to fill it out by hand while you find yourself in a lawyer’s waiting area. You will have the ability to enter your case data at your own speed from any Internet-connected device.
Built into the online divorce interview will be a full context-sensitive client support system. You will be able to complete your online divorce interview in any number of sessions. Each time you log out, your data is securely stored utilizing cutting edge database security – both physical and electronic. When you log back into your account, your personal data will be there waiting for you.
An online divorce will likewise mean that you will be able to modify and alter your information at all times up till your case has actually been submitted at your local Superior Court. When your case has actually been submitted at Superior Court, you will still have the ability to change the majority of your case data, including your personal financial information, but there will be certain legal and security limitations on changing some information that is already part of the Superior Court record.
After you’ve concluded the online divorce interview, you click a button to inspect your interview. The system will examine all pages for completion, making you aware of any pages that still require attention. Additionally, the interview will evaluate any time-critical issues of your case to ensure that there is no approaching important time limit, based upon the facts of your case, such as a child’s upcoming 18th birthday. Thirdly, the interview check will prompt you to indicate that there have been no changes to primary issues since you finished the interview. When those three checks have been completed conclusively, you simply click a button that says, “Continue to Lawyer Review.”
At that point, your Online Divorce Lawyer will be activated by email to review your online divorce interview, download the correct batches of completed legal docs and call you to make arrangements with you for a case strategy conversation and a doc evaluation. Check with your Online Divorce Lawyer how this will be done. Often this will be an in person conference. In some cases, this will be done by Zoom or email and phone.
As soon as the case has actually been examined and the completed legal forms downloaded, evaluated and signed and dated by you, your uncontested divorce will be ready to be filed at your local Superior Court.
Watch Our Introductory Video on Online Divorce Interviews:
Unbundled Legal Services in California
What are unbundled legal services? They are services provided by a lawyer, mostly in areas of consumer law, such as uncontested divorce, where the lawyer is not employed on a full conventional basis to carry out each and every single act required to achieve a final legal goal, such as to get a divorce. Rather, you, the divorce consumer, do all of the leg work in your own case but contract the lawyer just to offer services in the sections of your case where you need that lawyer’s skill and knowledge.
Unbundled legal services are in some cases called limited legal services or limited scope representation. These are all the same thing. Unbundled legal services are not new. The State Bar of California was publishing guidelines and offering guidance on unbundled legal services as far back as 2001. Nevertheless, attorneys have been slow-moving to take advantage of unbundled. Part of the reason is that unbundled services have been seen by numerous attorneys as nothing more than an opportunity to make less money for supplying fewer services.
That kind of thinking is why attorneys are normally not considered excellent business people. Such a lawyer would quote a $7500 fee for an uncontested divorce to 20 target clients a month and not be worried when only one person chooses them. In such a situation, the lawyer has invested possibly 5 hours prospecting customers and has grossed $7500 without in fact having done any legal work.
Far more effective is for that lawyer to include another alternative and to explain to the target customer about the two alternatives upfront. ” My flat cost for an uncontested divorce in California is $7500. That’s where I do every single thing for you: a 30-minute face-to-face assessment, document preparation, case evaluation, strategy conversation, a legal rights examination, filing at the regional Superior Court, service of process on your partner, extra phone calls at $250/hour with a minimum of 15 minutes per call and walking through your final judgment to the judge for approval and signature. However, as I understand that divorce is usually a duration of monetary trouble for the majority of people, I’ve added a more economical alternative, namely an unbundled paperwork review service in an uncontested divorce for $1200. This consists of an online document generation service, document review and a 20-minute telephone case evaluation and 2 follow-up email replies (more can be bought). You would manage your own filing at Superior Court and arrange your own service of process on your spouse under my instructions.”
Due to the fact that there are people who wish to pay a lawyer $7500 to do everything, in this situation, 1 of those 20 individuals will still not be put off by the fee and will still pay that $7500. However, as the $1200 (or thereabouts – each law practice is separately owned and run) is comparable to the overall fees charged by some online divorce mills and is a far better value, those 19 targeted clients will not simply walk away forever. 2 or 4 of them will recognize the offer and will take that $1200 service to have a local lawyer on their side.
So now, the lawyer has indeed still invested 5 hours prospecting, however with the two options provided, he’s got one customer at $7500 and maybe 3 at $1200. That’s $11,100 in gross income for the same amount of prospecting..
This is simply an example, naturally, however it is a real example. Factors to consider like this are why a growing number of divorce attorneys in California are constructing unbundled services into their menu of options for an uncontested divorce.
Avoid Unlicensed Unregulated Out-of-State Online Divorce Mills – They Are a Disaster!
About 2 dozen online divorce mills have dominated the online divorce industry since the beginning of the Internet. All but one or two are located outside California. 2 remain in India. They are unlicensed, unregulated and totally unaccountable. They are a disaster. See our comparison table. They claim to be able to deal with uncontested divorce in each of the 3000+ counties in the United States – an impossibility. They make many errors. They do not know the guidelines and policies of your regional Superior Court. Just a regional lawyer will understand California law and the guidelines and policies of your regional Superior Court and even the practices of individual local Superior Court judges. Working with an unlicensed online divorce mill will resemble the blind leading the blind.
Additionally, those 2 dozen online divorce mills are full of fraud – all kinds of fraud. There are price fraud, up-selling and testimonial fraud.
For Many, an Uncontested Divorce will also be an Online Divorce. Watch Our Video on Online Divorce Fraud. This Could Be a Feature Length Movie, but We've Kept It Short. You'll Get the Idea:
Conclusion
Thanks for reading and I hope this has helped get you on the right track for your uncontested divorce in California.
So how do you take advantage of (1) wicked-cool online divorce apps while using (2) competitively-priced unbundled legal services offered by a local lawyer and (3) avoid the fraud swamp of online divorce mills? Easy! Get the Best of Both Worlds. These are all licensed California lawyers who are competitively priced when compared to out-of-state online divorce mills. And you won’t get cheated.
Either of the following 2 options will get you hooked up:
The problem with the providers in this group is that they are all aggressive up-sellers. Their only goal is to get you signed up to a cheaper package and then up-sell you to a $1500-$4500 package.