Online Divorce

Online Divorce

Is the divorce process too difficult, too complex, too swamped with legal jargon for you? Try online divorce for a change and see exactly what it means to have an "easy divorce."

A handful of sites have recently cropped up to answer your needs concerning divorce paper works. Among these sites is LegalZoom.com and CompleteCase.com which promise to complete divorce paper work, sometimes instantly, for thousands of dollars less than the typical offline split.

At some level, these online divorce sites are similar to other sites that offer blank legal forms for download and some offline do-it-yourself kits. However, in addition to giving you downloadable legal forms, these online divorce sites also help you fill out divorce forms that are state-specific. In so doing, they guarantee that your forms will be accepted by your local courts.

However, make no mistake in believing that divorce can now be finalized over the Internet. Not yet, anyway.

"Some people think you can go online and meet your future husband or wife and then divorce them the next day. It's not really like that," says Brian Liu, CEO and co-founder of Los Angeles-based LegalZoom, whose other founder is Robert Shapiro, one of O.J. Simpson's defense attorneys.

"You can't get divorced with the click of a button. You still have to go through the court system."

However, things are made so much easier for you. For instance, there are counties (as in all counties in California) that allow you to file for divorce via mail or fax. Thus, it is entirely possible for you to be divorced without ever setting foot in court or a lawyer's office. Just process your online divorce forms and send them in by mail or by fax.

For those living in counties outside of California, you can check with your county clerk's office and see if they accept filings this way.

How Online Divorce Works

LegalZoom and CompleteCase follow distinct methods to help ease the burden of figuring out the way through the legal divorce legal jungle. Below is a brief outline of each:

LegalZoom

The online divorce site asks you a series of questions, after which the site then populates the forms based on the answers you have given. Basically, the form that you see online is not the actual legal form, thus, saving you the trouble of trying to make sense of them.

CompleteCase

The online divorce site walks you through your state's divorce forms question by question with explanatory text provided. In short, you are looking and filling out the actual legal form. The only difference is that the online divorce site offers you pointers and tips and basically walks you through the whole process. After you are done, you print the documents and file them with the appropriate court.