A lawyer I know who also does a lot of immigration work came to visit me today. He wanted to ask me if I knew of a forms preparer whose fraud and scams had gotten a client of his in trouble. I stopped him in the middle of his story, because that same preparer had pulled the exact same scam on someone who is now a client of mine. I will not blog about that case because it is currently at USCIS and is still too hot to write about.
However he did share an interesting bit of information. Apparently there is a person in Lowell who is not a lawyer, but claims to be getting people divorces without any one needing to go to court. Of course, it is not possible for him to get some one divorced without anyone going to court. This is a scam. He is able to get the people certified divorce certificates though. These certificates are forgeries. Unfortunately for this lawyer, an immigration client of his, quite innocently, paid her money to get divorced; got a fake certificate, and used that fake divorce certificate in an immigration case. Now this client has real problems which are going to take a good amount of time, effort and money to fix. He then had a second client come in with a fake certificate from the same source. I am going to scour my files this week to make sure that no one inadvertently slipped a fake divorce certificate in on me. I am told that the fonts this scammer used are not correct, so once I locate all of the files, checking the certificates will not be difficult. If a client of mine did get defrauded, it is important that we catch it; report it and fix it, before the Immigration Service catches it. It is always better to be proactive than reactive.
It is not possible in Massachusetts to get a divorce without anyone appearing in court. There must be a hearing. I have done divorce hearings where only one party appeared, but none with neither party. If someone is telling you that he can get you divorced in Massachusetts without a hearing, he is not telling you the truth. If he then presents you with a divorce certificate, the certificate is fake. Do not use it and do not remarry!