Truthfully, how easy is it to do your own divorce? Can someone without any legal training really do it all without the need to pay the big money a lawyer will cost?
The answer is absolutely yes, it is possible, but it is not always the best thing to do. For example, if you have special financial circumstances and plan to try to prove to a a divorce court judge that your child or spousal maintenance payment should be something other than than what your spouse wants it to be, then hiring a lawyer could definitely be in your monetary best interests.
There are too many complicated legal, procedural, and practical issues to risk something as vital as what you are convinced to be the best outcome for the children even if it means shelling out money on a lawyer.
That is why there are services that prepare your divorce papers for you, provide detailed directions and are prepared to respond to any questions you may have during the process. They charge more than you will pay for a do-it-yourself divorce kit at the bookstore but the time, aggravation, and even the money they can save you when it is all over will be well worth it.
Even if you use one of these services you will still have your own work to do. This includes giving the service the accurate information they need to prepare your divorce paper work and going to the court office to file your divorce documents. Besides that, unless you and your spouse are filing a joint divorce, you will need to make arrangements to have your spouse officially served with the divorce papers. This might be as simple as sending them via registered mail or it may mean hiring a professional, depending on your circumstances.
The countless hours you save trying to figure this out for yourself is what you are really paying for when you hire one of these services.
Can you realistically do it all by yourself without using one of these services? Well, a family lawyer I know tells a story about a call he received from a legal assistant he once worked with who was looking for his help because she could not follow the do it yourself divorce book she had been helping her friend with – and her friend was also a legal assistant. I imagine it is possible to do it all by yourself but, for the sake of a couple hundred bucks, why deal with the hassle when it is relatively so affordable and simple to get help with your divorce?
