Legal Question in Family Law in Missouri

Re: divorce waiver form

From your question you sound like a well-intentioned person. I applaud your willingness to help others and I respect your profession immensely. However, I would extend a warning to you personally. You should be extremely cautious whenever you are asked to provide information, advice or even "forms" to someone involved in a legal situation. Many cases such as yours inadvertantly wind up as a complaint against the well-intentioned person for practicing law without a license. Also, it is quite possible that the "help" you are giving may turn out to actually cause more harm than good. Most of the "divorce kits" I have seen should be taken off of the market. Most of the time that people try to go through a divorce without an attorney they wind up with more problems and more expense than if they had used an attorney in the first place. When a person's legal status, legal rights, legal obligations, perhaps the custody of children, child support, parenting issues, visitation, health care, insurance, education, taxes, property both real and personal, are all on the line, at risk and to be determined, it would certainly seem to be common sense to me that it would be wise to use an expert. Not to mention the fact that an expert has professional liability insurance to protect his or her client in the event that the expert makes a mistake which causes damage to the client. The form that your question refers to does not exist, at least not by the name you use for it. You may actually be referring to the "Waiver of Service" and "Entry of Appearance" forms which are so often included in those divorce kits. In my experience, it is all too easy for anyone to fill in the blanks on a form, even when they have no idea what the legal effect of the form might be or even what to call it. Please at least suggest to the people involved that an attorney should be consulted. Thank you.