Do Process: ProcessServicePA – Issue #5
Now Just Filing A Divorce Complaint in Pennsylvania Can Put Your Safety At Risk
Just filing a divorce complaint in Pennsylvania can now be dangerous, according to Kevin Handy, a divorce lawyer in Doylestown, PA with the family law firm of Cooley & Handy.
That’s due to the aggressive marketing tactics of unscrupulous divorce lawyers and law firms. Those attorneys and firms, desperate to generate new business, are now monitoring divorce dockets in Pennsylvania. As soon as a new divorce complaint is filed, they are sending letters to the defendant in the case, alerting him or her that a divorce complaint was filed and offering legal representation.
“We used to just worry about when to serve a divorce complaint,” says attorney Handy. “Now we have to be careful about when we file it.”
These sales tactics present a danger to unwitting people filing for divorce, because news of a divorce can create a volatile situation. An abusive spouse, now aware of a pending divorce action due to the receipt of a solicitation from an attorney, for example, could assault the plaintiff-spouse before they take action to vacate their home or otherwise protect themselves. For example, according to a Proposed Amendment to the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct appearing in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on September 23, 2017, a Pennsylvania lawyer reported that a woman she represented, who was the victim of abuse, planned to move out of her home on the day after she filed for divorce. Her husband, however, received a solicitation letter from an attorney within 24 hours of her filing the complaint and, on the evening before she planned to move out of the marital home, was assaulted by her husband in front of their children.
“In the past, we usually recommended to our clients to file for divorce as soon as possible to establish a ‘date of separation,’ which is legally significant in divorce cases. We would then wait to serve the complaint until our client was ready to move out of the house,” says attorney Handy. Now, we advise them to assume that their spouse will know of the filing within a day or two. In cases with volatile spouses, we have changed our tactics and now wait to file for divorce until our client has safely moved out of the house.”
Karen Salib, a Bucks County divorce mediator with SnapDivorce, LLC, also headquartered in Doylestown, PA, thinks that the best course of action, if possible, is to discuss the fact you are going to file divorce with your spouse. “It’s never a good idea to surprise your spouse with a divorce complaint – it starts the whole process off on the wrong foot,” says Ms. Salib. “An amicable resolution to a divorce, through divorce mediation or otherwise, is always preferable. We recognize, however, that it’s not always possible where a spouse is abusive or mentally unstable.”
Both Handy and Salib, advise choosing a reputable and professional process server when serving a Divorce Complaint or other legal document by personal service. “If you have to go the route of personal service through a process server, you want to find someone who is committed to finding the right opportunity to serve the opposing party in a respectful and tactful manner. An aggressive or unprofessional process server can make the divorce process even more adversarial from the outset.