Using online tools to help facilitate amicable divorce
Divorce can be among the most challenging experiences in a person’s life, dredging up pain and stress that some people might rather avoid. Wevorce, a two-year-old company based in San Mateo, Calif., works to use technology to attempt to confront divorce issues amicably, using both online tools and face-toface counseling.
Wevorce focuses on collaborative divorce, a process that aims to keep clients, and often families, out of court via involvement of attorneys, mediators, financial specialists and childcare or parenting experts.
CEO and co-founder Michelle Crosby said inspiration for her family law practice and Wevorce came from an experience at age 9, when she was forced to state in court which parent she preferred to live with.
She said she raised $2.5 million from angel investors and venture capitalists and went through the Y Combinator accelerator to create a solution to what she considers a broken divorce process.
Wevorce starts families with a questionnaire and sorts them based on how they fit into Wevorce’s 18 archetypes, including “betrayed,” “initiator,” “submissive” and “saver.” The company then assigns a team to help clients through the process. Clients use online tools to track progress and can meet with divorce professionals for mediation and other sessions.
“We’ve taken all of the predictable pieces of the divorce, and the technology makes that process so much more efficient,” Crosby said.
Wevorce claims that in 2014 it kept all of its active families out of court. It also said it’s been 97 percent accurate in predicting costs.
Crosby said clients find out up front how much they’ll have to pay for their divorce, with rates calculated on how many experts they work with and how many hours they need. Childless couples who need to work with a financial expert, for example, would pay less than a family that needs parenting specialists as well.
She said the average fee for Wevorce, which operates in 23 states and Washington D.C., is $5,500. The company has 46 certified pros and another seven signed up for training, she said.
The company takes a 3 to 6 percent cut of what clients pay each professional as-
— Wevorce CEO Michelle Crosby
signed to their team, with the rate rising as families access more specialists. Providers also pay to be listed on Wevorce. Mediators, lawyers and financial and parenting specialists pay $199 a month. Postdivorce specialists, such as real estate and insurance agents, pay $39 per month to be listed in the company’s online weCommunity referral network.
Jill Daniels, a LaGrange, Ill.-based attorney and mediator, said she decided to partner with Wevorce because she wanted to grow her mediation business and wanted more people to take a collaborative approach to divorce.
Daniels said she likes Wevorce’s flatfee approach.
“The legal culture as a whole is moving toward a flat-fee basis because consumers are smart and there are a lot of options for them,” Daniels said. She said she also likes that the online tool lets people track their progress, which she considers important for people going through an arduous, often emotional process.
Daniels said she also liked that Wevorce will allow her to get paid up front, eliminating the uncertainty and awkwardness of hourly billing. She said she might typically charge $7,500 for mediation and preparing documents. Since Wevorce assures payment and saves time, she said, she might charge $3,500 to $5,000 instead.
Karen Covy, a Chicago-based lawyer and member of the Collaborative Law Institute of Illinois, said collaborative divorces are more expensive than the splits couples can work out on their own but significantly less than when families go to court.
Covy said collaborative divorces don’t work well for couples for whom there’s an imbalance of power or a history of domestic abuse, for example. But for those who need financial and emotional guidance, it can be a good option.
Wevorce provides a good opportunity for parties in different locations to work together toward a resolution. But Covy also said it can be difficult for mediators or legal professionals to work with far-away clients because divorce law is state-specific.
She also said the digitization of the process could be convenient for some but might hinder communication for others. Overall, she said she liked the idea of Wevorce and would consider working with the company in the future.
“Divorce is usually the lowest point of most people’s lives,” Covy said. “How could I be against anything that might help that?”
“We’ve taken all of the predictable pieces of the divorce, and the technology makes that process so much more efficient.”