Tuesday, August 6, 2002

A story published today by the National Post reports that the online divorce service out of Seattle, Washington will now be available in Canada. This controversial service officially launches across Canada (except in Quebec, where language barriers are an issue). With roughly 70,000 divorces per year, Canada is a huge potential market for the company. An uncontested divorce in this country costs, on average, $2,000 ($1,000 for each attorney). CompleteCase.com, however, is offering unhappilywed Canadians their walking papers for only $349.

Randy Finney founded CompleteCase.com just over a year ago. A family law attorney in Seattle for over a decade, Finney created the company in response to the number of calls he gets from people asking him how to fill out the cumbersome divorce forms properly and how to calculate child support.

"I couldn't really help them properly without bringing them in and charging them a full retainer," he says, "which is $1,000 to $1,500 for one side of an uncontested divorce."

The Web site was a way to give people access to the information and guidance they needed without the high cost of legal fees. The service launched in Seattle in May, 2001, and within eight months, it had spread across the country.

According to some family law lawyers, the biggest concern about a service like this is that users won't be properly informed about their legal rights and obligations and may inadvertently make poor choices.

"I think it's a potential disaster for huge numbers of unsuspecting people," says Joel Miller, a family law lawyer and partner with the Toronto law firm, Ricketts, Harris. "No matter what a site like this says, it can only provide generic information. It counts on the person filling in the form to know enough about their legal rights to fill it out accurately."

In a very small number of cases, where there are no conflicts regarding children or property, CompleteCase.com could be useful. But this is rarely the case, says Miller.

But Finney points out that lawyers have a vested interest in complicating matters and that some petitioners for divorce are less interested in a perfectly equitable division of property than they are in just getting out. They may want a simple, amicable divorce and for these people, his service is a great alternative.

"A lawyer's job is to be an advocate, not to be an emotional counselor," says Finney. "Most lawyers are not trained to be emotional counselors and aren't very good at it. Their job is to be an advocate, but this is not something that leads quickly to a resolution. They'll say, 'This is the best I can do for you. If we fight tooth and nail, this is what I can get you.' But if both lawyers do this, it often results in an increase in the conflict."