LegalZoom Divorce Review
Overall Ranking/Score:
LegalZoom is one of the largest and best online legal form providers. However, LegalZoom’s divorce forms/service is not their strong suit.
Price
A LegalZoom Divorce review indicated that a divorce package costs $499. Divorce packages include state-specific divorce documents for each spouse, a state-specific marital settlement agreement, and parenting plan for specifying custody and visitation arrangements. LegalZoom’s divorce pricing is on the high end for online divorce forms, but two of the other leading divorce form providers, CompleteCase and 3StepDivorce, charge the same amount. In any case, it’s certainly less expensive than hiring an attorney.
Speed
LegalZoom will send your forms via FedEx (at no additional charge) in five to seven business days. While this is not a particularly long time to wait, it is worth noting that the other five online divorce form providers in our comparison chart all provide divorce forms instantly via PDF.
Peace of Mind Review
Unlike simple do-it-yourself forms, the LegalZoom divorce team will personally review of your work for completeness and consistency after you create your personalized divorce documents. This service is not available in Missouri.
Free Marital Settlement Agreement and Parenting Plan
Your LegalZoom divorce documents come with a Marital Settlement Agreement and Parenting Plan.
Free Name Change
The wife can elect to have the LegalZoom divorce documents change her name back to her maiden name at no additional charge.
Customer Support
You can get support by phone (M–F 7:00 am – 10:00 pm CT, S/S 9:00 am – 6:00 pm CT) or email. The LegalZoom website also provides access to attorneys — more on this below.
Ease of Use
Instructions are included with your package, for ease in filing.
Attorney Support
Attorney support is not included, but LegalZoom does have a unique Attorney Advice feature that connects you with live attorneys, for an affordable price.
No Specialty
While LegalZoom is one of the largest legal forms providers out there, it does lack specialization. LegalZoom provides online forms for patent and copyright law, trademarking, wills, real estate leases, and many other business and personal legal specialties. This means you can find a lot of services, but you may not get the in-depth legal knowledge of a company that specializes in only divorce forms.
National Provider
As a national provider, the company accommodates all 50 states. Similar to the previous point, this is good in that it helps them reach a lot of customers, but it may mean they have less experience in divorce law for your particular state.
Reviews and Testimonials
We found six negative reviews on LegalZoom’s Better Business Bureau page. However, for a company of this size, that’s pretty small. Also, we noticed that a representative from LegalZoom personally reached out to each complaint on the site, attempting to resolve the situation, which is nice to see.
Complaints
On the other hand, the number of complaints on LegalZoom’s BBB page is fairly high: 252 as of this writing. According to the BBB website, the company continues to meet BBB’s A+ accreditation standards, which include a commitment to make a good faith effort to resolve any consumer complaints.
BBB Accreditation
LegalZoom has been BBB accredited since 2001 and has an “A+” rating.
Guarantee
LegalZoom offers a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee for their online divorce form services. They first attempt to correct problems for unsatisfied customers, and then offer either a refund or credit for future LegalZoom purchases.
In Business Since
LegalZoom has been in business since 2001. In the online legal forms industry, this is a long time.
Security
The LegalZoom website features the Norton Secured seal, which signifies that the site has a valid SSL certificate, and can secure your private information with encrypted data transmission. The site is also regularly tested for malware.
Negative Factors
LegalZoom’s greatest strength — its size — may also be its greatest weakness. As noted earlier, a lack of legal or state specialty could be a drawback for LegalZoom customers. In addition, its five to seven-day wait for form delivery is slower than most competitors.
Conclusion
Because of its BBB ranking, solid reputation as a leading national provider, reasonable pricing, and free delivery we consider LegalZoom in the 2nd tier of uncontested divorce form providers.
must I have a printer for my computer to do the divorce?
Allan,
Most divorce form providers (including LegalZoom) will have an option to mail the divorce forms to you. Some providers will charge extra to print and ship your forms, but LegalZoom does not.
Does the cost include filing the divorce papers with the County Cerk or is that extra?
Michele,
The county filing fee will be collected by the county (it is extra). LegalZoom charges $499 for customized divorce forms (these are not fill in the blank forms) and instructions on how to use the divorce forms. When you decide to file the paperwork you will pay the county filing fee at that time.
Will this draft a separation agreement that outlines child support, custody and visitation agreement that we both agree on?
LM,
Yes. Please note that LegalZoom divorce forms are now provided by Wevorce. For more information, see our Wevorce review.
I’m still confused..so to begin, it costs 299.00. Then an additional 299.00 to file the paperwork with the count clerks?
T.y
Nancy
Nancy,
Yes. LegalZoom sells divorce forms for $499 (no longer $299). Once you pay for your LegalZoom divorce forms, you will need to file a petition with the district clerk to open a divorce case. The district clerk will charge a filing fee (the filing fee varies by county). If you cannot afford the filing fee you prepare and file an affidavit of inability to pay costs to have the clerk consider your request to waive the filing fee.
What if we agree on everything & just want the divorce? We have no children no property or debts we have been separated for a very long time & he was unfaithful having 6 children by another woman.
This is the ideal scenario for using DIY divorce forms from Legalzoom.
You state we need to file a petition with the district clerk to open a divorce case? Would legal zoom be doing this?
No, Legalzoom would be preparing the divorce paperwork for you (the Petition, Decree, etc). You would still need to file the paperwork (i.e. the Petition) with the court and follow through with getting the judge to sign the Divorce Decree.
LegalZoom discriminates against same-sex couples. In filling out their online questionnaire for divorces, they provide no option to select anything other than “husband” and “wife”. I immediately contacted them about this before submitting my paperwork. They assured me the paperwork would only display “plaintiff” and “defendant” and not include any gender references. I completed the questionnaire, and the paperwork LegalZoom sent back to me included “husband” and “wife,” counter to the assurance from customer service. I immediately wrote to complain, and received no reply for two days. I just called them, and after a long hold time they told me that I do need for them to re-do the paperwork, and it could take two additional days. There is considerable cost to me in delaying the divorce. In 2021, LegalZoom has failed to accommodate same-sex couples in their online questionnaire, gives people wrong information when they complain about it, and requires an additional two days to fix their own mistake. They did not offer any way of expediting the correction. I strong recommend same-sex couples and our allies avoid this service.
We experienced the same thing. Their questionnaire uses the terms “husband” and “wife” so we asked and they said the paperwork would instead use terms like “petitioner” and “respondent.” Well, the paperwork said husband and wife. They’ve yet to fix, we’ll see if they’re even willing, there have been many problems with their service.
We have filed a petition for divorce through a lawyer, but want to finish the divorce without paying lawyers anymore. Do we need to start over or is there a part of Legal Zoom that we can use to finish?
There is no reason to start over. Legalzoom will provide all of the documents you need to do your own divorce. You can discard Legalzoom’s Petition since your attorney already filed that document.
I used this service and it was the worst experience I could imagine. Straight forward divorce, no kids, uncontested, minimal assets already evenly divided. The paperwork and instructions provided were not sufficient to get a divorce. Denied by the court. The service also required you to perform every step of the complicated process- abs they didn’t have the right steps described on their paperwork. Leaving me to try and figure it all or thrice my county court house web site. My case was denied and now I’m still paying an attorney to do everything this service promised to do but with an 18 month penalty.
Been there, done that with LZ. See my review, that is, if they will post it. Incorrect instructions, but luckily, I found the problems ahead of time and verified them with the MD Self-Help Center. My court date is coming up in a couple of weeks, and it looks like I have my ducks in a row after way too much of my own time and effort (mine is also an uncontested divorce with no minor children).
So sorry that you are going through this and spending the money for an attorney. There is no excuse.
I payed for the platinum package
I paid to file $429
Now do I also pay that $429 for my wife’s signed papers???
The amount you pay to Legalzoom covers their fee to prepare the Legalzoom divorce documents (not the filing fee that you’ll pay to the court). You should not have to pay an additional service fee for your wife’s documents as they will be included in the Legalzoom divorce documents.
I have put in hours of my own time and effort to double-check on LZ’s instructions. I paid for the premium service, only to find that at least three of the instructions that I was given were incorrect for the state of MD. When I called the customer service line to let them know that the instructions provided were incorrect, they said no one else has had a problem; I was able to provide the date that the procedures/requirements changed in the state of MD (I researched the instructions because they did not sound right to me and called the MD Courts Self-Help Center to verify the correct information). The first person I spoke with was not interested in what I was saying and said, “And what would you like for me to do?” The supervisor I spoke with said he would speak with LZ’s staff, but they stay up with the MD information and have never been informed of these changes I found (not real encouraging if I know about the changes, but they do not).
Also, when you complete the initial online questionnaire, it instructs you to answer NONE if you do not know the answer at that moment; what you are not told is that if you answer NONE, the forms will be generated several days later with NONE written on the form. It does not prompt you to re-enter this information (i.e., if you do not catch them yourself when you proof the documents, the forms will be filed that way). I assumed I would be prompted to recheck each of the “NONE”s, and I missed one and found it myself. Assume NOTHING with Legal Zoom.
If I could do it all over again, I would go directly to the MD Courts Self-Help Center and follow their instructions; the only difference would be my typing up some forms, mailing a couple of things, and not being charged $900. In fact, the person I spoke with at the Self-Help Center (which is free) said, “Stay away from Legal Zoom and just call us directly when you need anything.”
Legal Zoom is NOT worth the money I paid for an uncontested divorce.
Legal zoom divorce is a joke! I wish I had never signed up to use their service. They have made so many mistakes causing numerous delays. I have no idea when our non-contested divorce Will be final. It has been That have made excuse after excuse I have heard every thing from “ Our system is having glitches and not transferring over your information on to our forms.” Causing a months delay, To “after we pint a label to send you/your spouse/the court forms we have 14 BUSINESS days to ship the forms. That’s almost 3 week and They don’t even meet thier own dead lines for reviewing and sending out documents. Of course they forget to send a form so the time line is delayed again. If you want to keep your sanity DO NOT USE this service. I payed extra for the VIP (very irritating process) service and the 30 minutes to print it forms, forms with missing information and mistakes. I repeat DO NOT USE legal zoom divorce.
Terrible. They made several errors, had unexplained delays, lied about what their services cover, and were difficult to work with. And it turns out LegalZoom doesn’t even do the work. They outsource it to CompleteCase.com, an entirely different company. They won’t tell you, but even if you call LegalZoom divorce customer service, you’re actually talking to CompleteCase.com.