The Micklin Law Group is Pleased to Announce E-Divorce
A New Service for Clients in New Jersey
Effective immediately, The Micklin Law Group is pleased to offer clients the convenience and cost-effectiveness of an E-Divorce.
Most of us have long embraced the digital age, so we’re used to spending our workdays and our free time on a computer or smart phone. Now, with the federal government recommending social distancing and the closure of many businesses, we need digital solutions more than ever before. This includes people seeking a divorce. You read that right; if you and your spouse can agree on all aspects of the divorce, you can complete the entire legal divorce process without having any in-person contact with your divorce attorney or the courts.
The Micklin Law Group’s New Jersey E-Divorces
Because of the recent “stay at home” and social distancing orders, you may be feeling trapped in your home and your marriage. If your relationship has been rocky for a while, staying sequestered in your home with your spouse may give you the push you need to finally get divorced. Or, you may already be living separately from your spouse because of marital woes. Either way, now is the time to schedule a consultation with an attorney and get the ball rolling on your E-Divorce.
Whether you’ve decided on a divorce during the COVID-19 pandemic or are simply ready to stop postponing an inevitable process, there is a way for you to meet with an attorney, agree to the terms of your divorce, file the necessary paperwork, and finalize your divorce without having to leave your home. Brad Micklin’s E-Divorce service will completely eliminate the need for face-to-face communication. This contactless service allows you to meet with your attorney in virtual online conference rooms, upload necessary forms and documents, sign court documents electronically, and handle the finishing touches virtually before your family law attorney finalizes your divorce by appearing in court on your behalf.
Who’s A Good Candidate for an E-Divorce?
An E-divorce is not just for clients who don’t want to meet with their attorney in person; this service is appealing to many clients for a variety of reasons. It can be the right approach to divorce for all sorts of people:
- Divorcing couples who trust one another, get along, and agree to reasonable divorce stipulations on division of property, debt, assets, and parenting time
- Clients who have uncomplicated assets
- Whether spousal support will be paid
- Anyone looking for a lower-cost divorce approach
- Clients who understand the value of an experienced family law attorney’s guidance and who want to avoid the pitfalls of a “DIY divorce”
An E-Divorce will be less complicated than a traditional divorce and pricing will be dependent on the value and complexity of your assets, whether you have children, how many retirement accounts must be divided, and more. If you’re not sure whether you’d be a good candidate for an E-Divorce, read on or contact our team.
How Does An E-Divorce Work?
An E-Divorce allows divorcing couples who can agree on the distribution of their assets and debts a cost-effective solution to traditional divorce. You most likely will not be able to make an E-Divorce work if you and your spouse can’t be in the same room together. Not every divorce goes as smoothly as the next. You must agree that the no-hassle, low cost option of E-Divorce outweighs the need for you to be right and demand/receive everything you want. If you and your spouse have an adversarial or contentious relationship, it doesn’t mean you can’t see a favorable outcome using E-Divorce. For aggressive representation in an adversarial divorce, you’re better off working with Brad Micklin, on a more traditional approach to your divorce.
If, however, you and your soon-to-be ex are on the same page about making decisions including necessary compromises and getting through your divorce as quickly as possible, you’re right on track to pursue E-Divorce.
Initial Inquiry, Conflict Check, and Consultation
The process begins with your initial inquiry. Contact us, and we’ll reach out to get started! First, we will determine whether we are legally able to represent you in your divorce or if there is any conflict of interest to consider. One important note: we are ethically prohibited from representing both people in the marriage. As a result, either you or your spouse must hire us for an E-Divorce – we cannot represent both of you.
Once we’ve determined we can represent you, we’ll set up an initial consultation using our E-Divorce Virtual Conference Room. Our attorney will learn about your circumstances and determine whether an E-Divorce would work for your situation. If you choose to move forward following the consultation, we will request a retainer and enter into an agreement to represent you.
Because of the laws in New Jersey, your payment will be deposited into a trust account, and only used when we perform the work on your E-Divorce.
Intake Paperwork
You’ll complete our E-Divorce Intake Form and upload your form to a secure and confidential location. This paperwork requests a large amount of information, all of which is relevant to your divorce and will allow your attorney to efficiently do their job.
You and your spouse will have to cooperate by sharing with each other information regarding debts, assets, incomes, current addresses, information about your children (when applicable), properties, investments, and more. An E-Divorce cannot be successful if one spouse is withholding any of this information; if this becomes the case, you may be forced to take a more aggressive approach. But don’t stress about your unpredictable spouse; if you become an E-Divorce client and your spouse stops cooperating, we are prepared to offer further legal support in the form of a traditional divorce – the vast majority of which can still be completed virtually.
Draft Documents
There are several documents your New Jersey E-Divorce attorney must file with the local courts to begin the official divorce process. They include:
- Complaint and summons
- Property settlement agreement
- Proposed final judgment of divorce
This paperwork outlines your divorce for the courts by showing that both parties agree to the terms you’ve established – including the distribution of property, debts and assets.
You can find more information about the required E-Divorce court documents we file for our clients in this Q & A with Brad Micklin.
Adjustments Made by the Client
When the necessary documents have been uploaded to our secure server, your attorney, will review the information you provided and will schedule a meeting in our E-Divorce Virtual Conference Room to review any questions you have. We will then proceed to create the documents necessary for your E-Divorce. You will have the opportunity to review all documents and make changes as needed. It’s important to make these changes before the court hearing, especially since you will not be present in court with your attorney.
Court Hearing and Finalizing Your Divorce
Your attorney will be called to represent you in a court hearing. You are not required to attend this hearing; it is simply to ensure that all the required documents have been approved and signed by both parties. If the judge thinks the agreement you reached with your spouse is fair, and if all the paperwork is in order, your divorce will be finalized.
E-Divorces Offer the Best of Both Worlds
Who amongst us doesn’t strive to achieve the perfect balance of affordability and quality when we’re shopping for a product or service? You don’t want to compromise the quality or settle for “the budget option,” but you also don’t want to shell out thousands of dollars (many times tens of thousands of dollars) more than necessary to get what you need. When it comes to E-Divorce our team can help you strike the perfect balance of functionality and affordability.
A traditional divorce may be necessary for adversarial couples (for example, if you are divorcing a narcissist, or have complex custody or spousal support needs), but for cooperative spouses an E-Divorce is all you need. It can be done completely from the privacy of your own home, and because it proceeds quickly, an E-Divorce is significantly less expensive than when both people hire an attorney and battle it out in court. As a result, our experienced family law attorneys in Montclair and Nutley, New Jersey can offer their expertise at an extremely reasonable fixed fee to any client who chooses an E-Divorce.
The last thing you want to be doing during a global pandemic is a “DIY” divorce. The paperwork required is difficult to decipher, and the energy you’ll spend trying to understand New Jersey’s family court system could easily be put to better use. Instead, let our E-Divorce attorneys take care of the heavy lifting. You can focus on healing from your divorce and starting the next phase of your life.
Contact our New Jersey E-Divorce law firm to set up a virtual consultation!
Ready to start your next chapter?
Contact us.
FAQs About E-Divorce in New Jersey During COVID-19
Since launching our unique E-Divorce service, people are calling to ask questions about who can take advantage of it and how it works. This FAQ page will help answer most of your questions.
E-Divorce is designed for couples who want to avoid the pitfalls of a DIY divorce. They trust each other, do not have complicated assets, can agree between them on the division of property and debts, as well as on support and custody or visitation issues. Yet they want and value guidance from experienced New Jersey family law attorneys.
Our E-Divorce is designed for couples who do not want to stay married but are able to reach an amicable end to their relationship. If you can agree on all of the issues in a divorce including spousal or child support, custody and visitation schedules if there are children, and dividing assets and debts, filing for an E-Divorce online is designed with you in mind.
No. The family law attorneys at Micklin Law Group will guide you through the process and complete the court forms required based on information you provide us. We are available to discuss the process, review the forms with you and answer your questions at our Virtual Law Office, by phone or through email.
Once a couple has decided to file for an E-Divorce online, The Micklin Law Group, will collect the key information needed, complete the forms and submit them to the family court in your county. We’re also available to answer any questions you have as we go through the process with you in either our Virtual Law Office or at our video consultation room.
No. As in every other state, an attorney may represent only one side in a dispute including in an E-Divorce. So, one person retains us and they are our client. But since the couple agrees on all of the issues in their divorce and sign the documents, we can file them with the court on behalf of both the husband and wife.
In New Jersey, only one-half of the couple needs to file to start the divorce process. The court will assign a docket number and have a process server try to find your spouse to serve them with papers. If this is unsuccessful, the process server will file an affidavit with the court swearing the spouse’s whereabouts is unknown. A judge then reviews the E-Divorce papers and, assuming they are in order, issue a default judgement granting the divorce. A similar procedure is followed if an estranged spouse is located but refuses to accept delivery of the divorce papers.
When a couple uses our E-Divorce process, they agree on the property division between them so the court is not involved in the property settlement. If a husband and wife cannot agree on how to divide the marital property, they cannot take advantage of an E-Divorce.
Like everybody else, judges are learning to work remotely. So, it is hard to predict how long it may take for the case to appear on a calendar, a judge to approve a settlement, sign a decree and finalize the divorce. Even still, it is likely to be much faster than following the traditional route of getting a divorce.
No. One of the benefits of E-Divorce is that you do not have to show up in court for a hearing. A hearing with a judge will be done by video link with a Micklin Law Group attorney attesting that the necessary forms have been signed and filed, and that the couple have agreed on all of the issues such as property division, support payments, and so on. If the judge agrees that the settlement is fair, your divorce will be granted.
You are in the right spot! The experienced family law attorneys at the Micklin Law Group have created a Virtual Law Office for the first meeting You can schedule a meeting with us yet not have to practice “social distancing.” Our Video Consultation Room provides detailed information about filing for an E-Divorce.
It’s doubtful. Almost by definition, a narcissist thinks only of themselves and will fight to win on every point. An E-Divorce is designed for couples who can agree on everything from splitting marital property, dividing debts, spousal and child support if there are children, and custody and visitation schedules.
Moving on With Your Life
The E-Divorce online filing service from Micklin Law Group enables couples to end their marriage amicably even in the middle of a global pandemic. By being able to get a New Jersey divorce online even during a lockdown in the state of New Jersey means you can remove one source of the stress you are likely feeling now from a bad or failing marriage.
When a wife and husband can negotiate an amicable settlement between them, by using our unique E-Divorce service, couples who are splitting up can move on with at least one aspect of their lives by putting the pain and frustration of feeling stuck in your marriage behind them. By getting a divorce online, you will achieve your goal of ending your marriage amicably and probably much more quickly than with a traditional divorce.
Children Benefit from Your E-Divorce, Too
Divorce takes an emotional toll on everybody involved and it is especially hard on children. Countless studies done over the past 25 years have demonstrated that in many ways your kids are carrying ax extra heavy burden, particularly if they are younger.
Children under the age of about 10 worry about who will take care of them and many mistakenly believe that mom and dad spitting up is somehow their fault. But even teens and pre-teens are likely to react emotionally. They may lash out and be angry or become withdrawn and sullen. Their schoolwork can suffer and their grades will begin to slip. Children of all ages may not express their feelings, internalizing their hurt, confusion or anger. If a husband and wife who are ending their marriage can use our E-Divorce service to get a divorce online, the entire process from start to find will likely move along much faster than it would through a traditional divorce. As a result, not only will the mother and father be able to begin the healing process more quickly, so too will their children.
A Simple Solution for Simple Divorces in New Jersey
Being able to file for divorce online using our E-Divorce service is not for every couple. But for those who do not have complicated assets and can agree amicably on all of the issues in a divorce such as dividing assets and debts, the property settlement, spousal or child support, and custody and visitation schedules, using E-Divorce to get a divorce online in New Jersey may be the ideal solution.
We Will Help You Through Your E-Divorce
If you are contemplating a divorce in New Jersey and want to see if an E-Divorce will work for you, feel free to contact me or one of our family law attorneys at either 973.562.0100 in Nutley or at 862.245.4620 in Montclair. We can talk with you by phone, meet with you in our Virtual Law Office, or provide information by email.
