"First, you file your divorce complaint in family court.  There are a few other documents they give you to fill out but they aren't any big deal.  Then you give all the documents to the court and pay $100 to file them. From there the court does the rest.  They give you a paper with a hearing date and a stamped copy of the documents you filed.  The hardest part is getting the documents to the sheriff's office and coughing up another $55 to have your wife served. On the hearing date, you and your wife come to court, tell the judge what you each want and the judge grants your divorce. Three (3) months later your divorce is final."
 

Neither the Rhode Island Divorce Process nor the legal issues that go along with a Rhode Island divorce are this simple or this easy.  If this were the case, there would be no need for divorce lawyers and everyone would be handling their own divorces.

In truth, only a handful of people represent themselves in Rhode Island divorces each year in comparison to the total number of cases that come before the Rhode Island Family Court.

Many of the people who handle their own divorce cases without the benefit of an experienced divorce attorney make critical mistakes.  They are referred to as critical mistakes because if an attorney were to make these same mistakes it could subject the attorney to a claim for malpractice.  Certainly if a person would not want their attorney committing malpractice in their case, that same person wouldn't want to commit the same mistake themselves and leave them in the same poor position.

Examples of critical mistakes that have been witnessed in the Rhode Island Divorce and Family Courts have included

(1) dismissal of your case;

(2) prolonged delay of your divorce;

(3) improper procedure creating results you did not intend;

(4) failure to establish jurisdiction;

(5) failure to meet your burden of proof;

(6) failure to request necessary relief that you need from the court;

(7) failure to protect your future interests or the interests of your minor children;

(8) failure to anticipate tax consequences;

The list goes on and these are only a few of the problems that can arise.  These mistakes are far from miniscule.  It cannot be stressed enough how important it is that you know both your rights now, as well as the consequences that might occur if you failed to protect those rights correctly either at the time of your divorce hearing or at the time you file documents in the family court.

As you review the other sections of this website hopefully you will obtain a greater appreciation for the substantial issues that arise in Rhode Island divorce and family law.