May 19, 2012

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CompleteCase Review: A Quality Divorce Service Online

Hello,

this is my in-depth, unofficial review of CompleteCase, a divorce service that is entirely available online.

Note that this is a review; if you wish to head straight to CompleteCase, click here.

Why am I taking the time to write this CompleteCase review?  Because I am very supportive of people being able to take care of their own legal matters.  I have nothing against lawyers.  In fact, I think lawyers provide a very valuable service in our society and do a lot of good.  However, I’m also of the view that many people should be able to handle their own legal affairs whenever possible.  In other words, I’m a proponent of access to justice.

The reason I’m reviewing CompleteCase is in my view they offer a comprehensive and quality Online divorce service that I wish to bring to your attention.

However, if you don’t want to hear any negative elements about CompleteCase, then this review is not for you.  I will set out the good and the bad.

Overview of how CompleteCase Works

CompleteCase is as its name suggests – a complete divorce service for you. All you need to do is set up an account, answer questions, pay about $250 (court filing fees not included), and your divorce paperwork will be generated for you for filing, generally within 24 hours.

If you need legal advice, you can either go talk to a local lawyer or still get an account at CompleteCase and use their “live lawyer” service for legal advice.  The choice is yours.  The fact you can get legal advice (for an additional charge) is a real benefit of Complete Case.

CompleteCase Features

  • Easy-to-use questionnaire online.
  • All your information is automatically submitted to CompleteCase.
  • Cost:  $249 (plus any filing fees – which is specific to your county or state/province).
  • Your paperwork is generated for you and available typically within 24 hours.
  • You can make revisions.  This is a very nice feature because there are big decisions you need to make when getting a divorce.  Chances are you’ll want to make a change or two once the forms are completed.
  • Information on how to file your completed paperwork.
  • Provides divorce service for every state and province.
  • CompleteCase has telephone (toll free) and email customer service contact options so you can personally talk to their customer service.
  • Very user-friendly website.

Testimonials

Visit CompleteCase to read the many testimonials submitted by happy customers.  Too many to feature here.

CompleteCase Benefits

CompleteCase services are dedicated to divorces in every state in the USA and every province in Canada.

  • Cost savings: You can save a great deal of money in lawyer fees.
  • Speed: You get your completed paperwork fast and properly – typically within 24 hours.
  • Convenience: save yourself the time and hassle of trying to figure out the paperwork yourself.
  • Legal Advice: if you need access to a lawyer, CompleteCase offers “live lawyer” service which gets you quickly in contact with a lawyer in your state or province.

CompleteCase Complaints

  • The one main lacking element of CompleteCase is they don’t offer complementary services such as Power of Attorney document preparation, Wills, or any other legal services.  That said, it’s nice to know CompleteCase is dedicated and focuses on helping people get a divorce.
  • CompleteCase doesn’t have a Live Chat contact option on their website (I’m partial to using Live Chat).

Accolades

CompleteCase has been profiled on CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Headline News just to mention a few of the national broadcasters.  They have also been written about by Time Magazine, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, and MSN Money (plus numerous state and local publications).

In my view and experience, CompleteCase is an Online divorce service that is well-priced and offers the features and benefits you need and should expect when getting using an Online divorce service.

Click Here for the Official CompleteCase Website

End of the CompleteCase Review.

Filed Under: CompleteCase Review Tagged With: , ,

What If You and Your Spouse Can’t Agree to Your Divorce Terms?

If you wish to get a divorce without a lawyer by using an Online do-it-yourself divorce, you and your spouse must agree to the terms of your divorce – all the terms including property division and the child custody issues.

Sometimes this is not so easy to do – but at the same time you and your spouse don’t wish to each hire a divorce lawyer and then go to trial and have a judge decide matters for you.

Is there another option?

Yes, in many states and provinces you can jointly hire a family law mediator.  Often a family law mediator is a divorce lawyer who works with couples together working toward an amicable agreement.

A family law mediator will know the divorce law in your jurisdiction and can give you some guidance about how a court might see things and ultimately decide your case.  This type of guidance can be very valuable and save you a great deal of money – if you and your spouse are willing to work out the divorce terms together.  If you and/or your spouse simply want a long, drawn out fight, then a mediator may not be such a great idea.

If your family law mediation is successful, then you and/or your spouse can complete the divorce paperwork using an Online divorce service.  Your family law mediator should provide some documentation outlining the agreed terms.  You then provide this information to your self help divorce service who in turn completes the paperwork for your or your spouse to file in the appropriate court.

Although hiring a family law mediator can be costly per hour, you won’t need to hire that mediator nearly the number of hours as you would if you both hire divorce lawyers and then proceed to trial. One other benefit is the mediation route is very fast.  After a session or a few sessions, you can come to an agreement and then quickly proceed with your divorce.

Hiring a family law mediator is an excellent alternative to coming to agreement that then allows you to save money on your divorce using an Online divorce service for your state or province.  Of course, if you prefer to hire a lawyer to then process the divorce materials, you can do that as well.  With agreed terms, this would be much less expensive than both of you hiring a lawyer and then going to trial.

Filed Under: Divorce Without a Lawyer Tagged With:

Here’s One of the Best Ways to Hire a Top Prenup Lawyer

More and more people are hiring a prenup lawyer these days.  Given the high divorce statistics as well as second and third marriages – people are deciding that preserving their incomes and wealth is important.  After all, there is nothing like a divorce to hack away at the wealth you’ve earned.

The trouble with hiring a prenup lawyer in the traditional legal-service model is the time and expense.  Top divorce lawyers who prepare prenuptial agreements charge a lot of money.  It can also take a fair amount of time to finalize your prenuptial agreement.

The fact is you don’t have to be on the Forbes 400 richest in order for it to be a good idea to get a prenuptial agreement.  These days, people earning in the low six figures – or even less and well below a million dollars in assets are getting prenuptial agreements.  The reason is not so much the amount of money one has, but the amount of money in relation to their significant other.

In other words, if you have or earn significantly more than your significant other, then you want to protect your portion if the marriage ends.  This is the key reason to get a prenup agreement.

It seems to me another reason more and more people are getting prenuptial agreements is they are now more readily available for less money.  This is due to the Internet.  Legal services are now widely offered and provided over the Internet.  This is a very cost-effective and time-saving way to get quality legal services.

Prenuptial agreements are one such service.  Because the finished product is a document, it’s a perfect fit for online delivery.  You simply answer some questions and then your prenuptial agreement is completed and then reviewed by a prenup lawyer with the service.

Which service prepares great prenuptial agreements?

One of the largest online legal service providers is LegalZoom.  There are dozens of online legal service providers, but most offer a very narrow scope of services.  LegalZoom, on the other hand, offers a huge variety of legal services.  I call LegalZoom the online legal service provider giant – not only because they offer a diverse set of legal services, but also due the fact they’ve now served over 1 million people.

Because LegalZoom is so huge and is one of the most popular legal service providers, they get a sufficient amount of legal work so that they can employ or contract with lawyers who focus in each specific area of law.  Prenuptial agreement service included.  This means when you get a prenuptial agreement prepared through LegalZoom, you’re dealing with a prenup lawyer that does this frequently.  This means the lawyer is well-versed in specifically preparing prenuptial agreements.

The fact is few divorce lawyers do only prenuptial agreements.  Those that do cater to incredibly wealthy people who have very specific and complex needs.  However, most people’s prenup requirements are not complex at all and don’t require an insanely expensive prenup lawyer.  Besides, finding a prenup lawyer that does that work exclusively is not so easy.

If you’re looking to simply preserve your wealth in the event your marriage ends, then consider saving time, hassle, and money by using a top prenup lawyer through LegalZoom.

Filed Under: Prenuptial Agreements

Case Study of a Do-It-Yourself Divorce

It’s easy to get married, not always easy getting divorced.  Of course, pretty much nobody contemplates divorce when getting married.  At least not our fictional couple David and Maria.  Let me illustrating getting a do-it-yourself divorce using them as an example.

David and Maria are both 51 years old.  They have two adult children.  They married when they were young; both 19 years old.  David is a restaurant manager and Maria is a hair dresser.  They live in Grand Rapids, Michigan in a home they own outright.  They’ve been frugal over the years and saved their money accumulating a paid-for home, $75,000 in savings, and approximately $300,000 in retirement funds.  Their plans for the future dramatically took a change about 10 months ago.

With no kids still at home, their divorce involves a division of property only.  But let me back up and explain briefly why they want a divorce.

About 10 months ago Maria, who had been working since she was 18 (so has David) decided she wanted to travel extensively.  She had a friend who set out 2 years ago on a long road trip that then developed into a round-the-world trip.  Maria met up with her friend in Chicago 10 months ago and caught the travel bug.  Both David and Maria did little travel outside Michigan while raising their family.

Maria proposed a 6 month road trip throughout the USA to David.  He wasn’t interested.  He also isn’t open to the idea of Maria going alone, which Maria also proposed.  David is well aware of Maria’s friend who is travelling and so he’s concerned Maria won’t wish to return to Michigan.  Long story short, this couple is at an impasse and can’t resolve the extreme differences in their future plans.  David is tired of arguing about it and doesn’t wish to remain in an uncertain relationship.  He’s broached divorce.  Maria, who is very keen to travel, is agreeable to a divorce.  The kids aren’t happy, but there isn’t much they can do.

After counselling, which didn’t resolve the matter, David and Maria decided to pursue divorce.  They sat down, tallied their assets and are immediately agreeable to a 50/50 split.  No argument there.  David can use his portion of the savings equity in the home to buy out Maria’s 50 percent ownership in the home valued at $130,000.  Maria, since she’s planning to travel, doesn’t mind letting David have the home.

Here is an ideal situation for a couple to pursue a do-it-yourself divorce.  They may not agree about their future years, but they easily agree about the financial terms of their divorce.  All they need to do is decide whether to do their divorce completely on their own or get some assistance to complete the Michigan divorce paperwork.  Neither are particularly interested in figuring out how to properly process divorce paperwork.  Maria proposed checking out some Online divorce services to quickly process the documents.  Of course they’ll need to comply with Michigan’s requirements for divorce, and they will, but in the meantime they’ve mutually agreed to saving lawyer fees by using an Online divorce service.

Filed Under: Divorce Without a Lawyer Tagged With: