Uncontested Divorce & Custody

It means the parties have agreed on every issue the court would otherwise decide — the grounds, the division of every asset and debt, maintenance or its waiver, and where there are children, the parenting plan and child support — and have put that agreement in writing for the court to approve. The statutory framework is RSMo § 452.325 for the separation agreement and RSMo § 452.310 for the parenting plan.

It does not mean the case is filed jointly (Missouri has a petitioner and a respondent even when they agree), and it does not mean no lawyer is involved. It means the respondent does not contest, and the court’s role shrinks to reviewing the agreement for unconscionability on the financial terms and for the child’s best interests on the custody terms.

A case can also become uncontested partway through. Many cases are filed contested, exchange financial information, mediate, and are then submitted on an agreement. The earlier that happens, the less it costs.

No, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. A divorce has two parties with opposing interests on every financial term, and Missouri’s Rules of Professional Conduct — Rule 4-1.7 — do not allow a lawyer to represent both. A lawyer who “represents the divorce” represents neither of you.

What is allowed, and what we do, is represent one spouse, draft the agreement, and send it to the other spouse for review. The other spouse may consult their own lawyer, and we encourage it, because an agreement each side reviewed with counsel is far harder to attack later. The cost of that review is small compared to the cost of an agreement set aside for lack of disclosure or overreaching.

Where the other spouse chooses not to hire a lawyer, the agreement should say so in writing, and it should say that they were advised to.

The statutory minimum is thirty days. Under RSMo § 452.305 the court may enter a judgment once one spouse has been a Missouri resident for ninety days before the petition was filed and thirty days have passed since filing. In a fully agreed case the judgment can be submitted as soon as that period runs and the court’s docket allows.

Realistically, from the first meeting to the judgment, six to twelve weeks is typical: a week or two to gather financial information, a week or two to draft and revise the agreement, the thirty-day period, and the court’s scheduling. Cases with children add the parent education class, which is usually completed online within days.

The variable you control is how quickly the two of you produce documents and respond to drafts. Uncontested cases that drag are almost always waiting on a statement from a retirement plan, not on the court.

It can usually be handled on a flat fee, because the scope is knowable in advance — you know the number before we begin. The fee depends on whether there are children, whether there is real estate or a business, and how many retirement accounts need a QDRO. Court costs are separate: the filing fee, which varies by county, and any fee for the parent education program.

A flat fee covers drafting the agreement and parenting plan, the pleadings and financial statements, the filing, the hearing or affidavit submission, and the judgment. It should also cover the follow-through — deeds, QDROs, title transfers — because a judgment that is never implemented is a problem you will pay to fix later.

For comparison, a contested case is billed hourly against a retainer, and the total depends on the other side as much as on you. The difference between the two is almost always larger than any difference in hourly rates between firms.

Not simply by saying so. Child support is the child’s right, not the parents’, and Missouri Supreme Court Rule 88.01 creates a rebuttable presumption that the Form 14 amount is correct. Under RSMo § 452.340 a court may depart from it only after a finding that the guideline amount is unjust or inappropriate after considering all relevant factors.

Parents with equal time and similar incomes may produce a Form 14 that yields a small number, and the court may find that number unjust or inappropriate in light of the equal schedule and agreed expense-sharing. That is a legitimate result, but it requires the worksheet and the finding. An agreement that skips them will be sent back, or worse, approved and then reopened.

The same is true of the parenting plan. Custody terms are never binding on the court; RSMo § 452.325 expressly excludes them. The court reviews the agreed plan against the child’s best interests before approving it.

It depends on the circuit. Some Missouri courts require a brief hearing at which the petitioner testifies to the basics — residency, the date of separation, that the marriage is irretrievably broken, that the agreement is fair. Others permit an uncontested case to be submitted on affidavit under their local rules, with no appearance at all.

Either way, the appearance is short and the questions are known in advance. The respondent typically does not need to attend if they have signed an entry of appearance and the agreement.

If you represent yourself, Rule 88.09 requires you to complete the Litigant Awareness Program before filing. If we represent you, we handle the filing and the hearing.

Then the case is a default, which is a different thing from uncontested, but ends in a similar place. After service, the respondent has thirty days to answer. If they do not, the court may proceed on the petitioner’s evidence and enter a judgment — including a property division, a parenting plan and child support — without the respondent’s participation.

A default judgment is less durable than an agreed one. A spouse who did not participate has grounds to attack the judgment they might not have had after signing an agreement, and the court cannot divide what it does not know about. Where a spouse is simply passive rather than hostile, it is usually worth one more attempt to get a signed agreement rather than taking a default.

Where a spouse cannot be located, service by publication is available with the court’s permission, and the case can proceed — though the court’s power over property and support is more limited when the respondent was never personally served.

It is the usual way to get there. Mediation is a structured negotiation with a neutral who has no power to decide anything. When it produces an agreement, that agreement is written up as a separation agreement and parenting plan and submitted to the court exactly as any other uncontested case is. Many Missouri circuits order mediation of custody disputes under RSMo § 452.372 before they will give a contested case a trial date.

Mediation works best when both sides arrive knowing their own numbers — a completed income and expense statement, a correct Form 14, real account balances and valuations. Mediating on guesswork usually produces either no agreement or a bad one. Preparing you properly for that session is a substantial part of what we do.

A mediated memorandum is not the finished product. The separation agreement that gets filed needs to say what the memorandum implied — deadlines, defaults, who pays what and when — or the case comes back.

Parts of it. Custody, parenting time and child support stay modifiable for as long as the child is a minor, on the standards in RSMo § 452.410 and RSMo § 452.370, and no agreement can take that away. Maintenance is modifiable unless the agreement and the judgment make it non-modifiable, which RSMo § 452.335 requires the order to state.

The property division is different. Once the judgment is entered it is final under RSMo § 452.360, and the division of assets and debts is not reopened because one spouse later regrets it. Under RSMo § 452.325 the agreement may also expressly limit or preclude modification of its non-child terms. That finality is a feature — it is what lets each of you plan — but it is also why the disclosure and the drafting have to be right the first time.

Yes, through a paternity action. Where paternity is not disputed, the parents present a consent judgment establishing parentage, adopting an agreed parenting plan under RSMo § 452.310, and setting support on an agreed Form 14. The court applies the same RSMo § 452.375 best-interest review it applies in a divorce.

The reason to do this while things are good is that a birth certificate or acknowledgment of paternity establishes that you are the parent but gives you no enforceable custody rights and no schedule. A parent who moves away, or who simply decides to stop cooperating, can do so until there is an order. A consent judgment converts a good relationship into an enforceable one, and it is the cheapest custody case there is.

The specifics that prevent the next argument. Exchange times and locations, not just days. Which parent has the child on the Monday holiday that attaches to their weekend. How Christmas and Thanksgiving rotate year by year. Summer: whether it is the regular schedule or blocks, and by what date each parent chooses their vacation weeks. Who claims the child on their tax return in which years. Who holds the passport. What happens when a parent cannot exercise their time — does the other parent get first refusal?

Then decision-making: who chooses the pediatrician, what happens if the parents disagree about a school or a therapy, whether either parent can enroll the child in an activity that falls on the other parent’s time. And the procedure for changes — a written request, a response within a set number of days, and mediation before anyone files.

Under RSMo § 452.375 both parents keep access to the child’s school and medical records unless a court orders otherwise. The plan should say so, and say how each parent will be listed with the school.

A rough list of assets and debts with approximate balances, recent pay stubs and last year’s tax return, retirement and mortgage statements if you have them, and — most useful of all — a written description of what the two of you have already agreed and what is still open. If there are children, a description of the schedule that happens now.

You will leave knowing whether your case is a candidate for a flat-fee uncontested engagement, what the agreement needs to cover, what the Form 14 number is likely to be, and what the timeline looks like.