Point, click, divorce

Web site offers advice to married couples who are splitting up

The honeymoon is over.

The flowers, the dress, the caterers, the invitations and everything else you bought on planyourwedding.com now seem to have been a waste. The marriage is over, and you are ready to throw away those his-and-hers towels.

Now you’re ready to click CompleteCase.com. Here you can get legal information and an entire uncontested divorce for less than the price of your wedding singer.

With more than a million divorces every year in our country, a Web site seeking to make the process convenient was inevitable. The site first gives free state-by-state divorce information. For example, did you know that to file for a divorce in Connecticut, one spouse must have resided in the state for at least one year? The Nutmeg State also sets a 90-day waiting period before a divorce can be granted.

In California, forms can be faxed to the court, and the divorce granted as soon as a judge signs the papers and sends them back. Connecticut law requires a court appearance.

Once users have read the rules and information pertaining to their state, and if they decide to continue, the $249 fee to begin the divorce process can be charged on a Visa or MasterCard. Each case gets a single login and password that the couple must share, but each person can work through the forms separately if they wish. Couples should anticipate other fees, such as court costs, to complete their divorce.

Forms and more forms

The service is not designed to decide who gets to keep the house or the dogs-playing-poker coffee mugs. It works only for uncontested divorces, in which both parties agree on how to split everything.

The site serves as an adviser, walking clients through each form and answering questions.

“You basically fill out forms and decide ‘OK, I want the toaster’ or ‘I want the cat.’ It asks what property you have, what property the husband should keep, what property the wife should keep,” says Randy Finney, the Web site’s founder.

Finney practiced divorce law in Seattle for 11 years before developing completecase.com.

The Web site has forms to fill out to decide every aspect of the divorce, including child custody, visitation and settlements. Formulas based on individual state laws can help compute child support payments from tax information. The site also provides links to mediation services available to settle disagreements.

“The Web site cannot help people who can’t come to a resolution in one way or another,” Finney says.

By answering a series of questions, users can decide many issues, including “Which party wishes to change their name?” and “Which parent should get tax exemption for children?”

Both parties must read all of the information and sign the forms showing that they agree with it.

The completed forms can be submitted as court-ready divorce documents.

“You print, you both review and you both sign them and you’re done,” Finney says.

Some detractors

Sound a little too easy?

Pat Love thinks so.

During a “CNN Talkback Live” discussion, Love, the author of “The Truth About Love and Hot Monogamy,” said, “One of the difficulties is it gives the illusion this is a painless process. Research shows that if you just wait, the low times will actually have an upswing, and your marriage will get better, even without intervention.”

On “Talkback,” divorce lawyer Cecil Weich said most couples should hire divorce lawyers.

“If the couples have money, property or children, they should absolutely not do this kind of a divorce,” he said.

He said the Web site is OK for a couple who gets married and decides to call it quits a month later.

Finney defends his program, saying that it is better for the family and the children not to go through months of fighting and name-calling.

If both parties in a divorce decide that the marriage has suffered an “irretrievable breakdown,” they can file for a “no-fault divorce.”

“If you’re going to do it,” Finney adds, “you might as well do it without paying for two attorneys and fighting for months.

“You print, you both review and you both sign them and you’re done.”