Does my divorce lawyer have to be based in my city?

Does the lawyer have to be based in my city?

No. Every lawyer admitted in Germany may represent you before any family court in the country. Where the firm sits decides nothing.

What counts is solely the admission to the bar, regardless of the firm’s postcode.

Since the principle of local admission fell away, admission to the bar carries the right of audience before every local, regional and higher regional court. A special admission is needed only before the Federal Court of Justice in civil matters, an area that does not concern family matters at all.

Which court has jurisdiction in the first place

The place of the court is decided not by your lawyer but by the law. In a divorce, local jurisdiction follows a fixed order of precedence (§ 122 FamFG): first the place where one spouse lives with the shared minor children; otherwise the last joint residence, provided one of you still lives there; failing that, the residence of the respondent.

Your place of residence therefore determines the court, regardless of where the firm sits.

How many lawyers the proceedings actually need

This question is closely tied to the first one and is answered wrongly more often.

The requirement of legal representation § 114 FamFG falls on the applying side. Whoever files the divorce petition has to be represented. The other side, by contrast, needs no lawyer of their own where it merely consents to the petition.

In an uncontested divorce one lawyer is therefore often enough for the whole proceedings, and from that comes the widespread expression of the “divorce with one lawyer”. What is saved is the second lawyer.

What matters is what this arrangement does not mean. A lawyer always represents one side only, never both. They do not advise the consenting side, check nothing on its behalf and owe it nothing. Anyone who consents thereby gives up their own advice, and that is a decision rather than a formality. As soon as maintenance, assets or pension entitlements are involved, at least one advisory conversation of your own is worthwhile, even where it stays at consenting.

For distance that means: where the one lawyer sits in Frankfurt and you live in Kiel, nothing about this division changes.

Why proximity used to count and hardly does today

Advice, pleadings, access to the file, all the correspondence with the court and the other side: today all of it runs digitally, by post or by telephone, while an appointment at the firm’s offices has become rare.

As a rule only you yourself have to travel to the court, and the firm’s location plays no part in that. The family court will as a rule order you to appear in person and hear you at the divorce hearing (§ 128 FamFG). For that one appointment you travel to wherever your proceedings are being conducted.

What distance costs and what it does not

Where your lawyer travels to a hearing away from the office, they may charge travel costs and an absence allowance RVG VV nos. 7003 to 7006. That sounds like a disadvantage of distance and in practice usually is not one. Where the advice runs by video and the documents run digitally, no travel costs arise at all until the hearing.

A figure helps for comparison. A train journey across the country and an absence allowance move in an order of magnitude that hardly registers next to the value in dispute of an average divorce. Anyone who chooses a lawyer who suits them less well for that reason is saving in the wrong place.

The actual fees do not change with distance. The value in dispute and the rates follow the statute, the same across the country (RVG and FamGKG).

When distance does get in the way

So far it sounds as though the location never matters. For the uncontested divorce that is largely true. For two other situations it is not.

Contested proceedings with many hearings. Where maintenance, assets or custody are genuinely fought over, several hearings accumulate. Each brings travel costs with it, and each costs you time. In proceedings that stretch over a year and five hearings, proximity is a real factor.

Children’s matters. Contact and custody proceedings run differently. They involve more hearings, often at shorter notice, and frequently the youth welfare office, a guardian ad litem and experts come in. Anyone represented from far away loses flexibility here.

That is the honest limit of the answer above. For the normal case of an uncontested divorce distance is almost meaningless; the more contested proceedings become, the more it counts.

How it works in practice

For instructions from outside Frankfurt the route looks almost always the same, and it has only one place requiring attendance.

The first conversation runs by video or telephone. Afterwards it is settled what your case needs and what it costs.

The power of attorney and the documents come digitally. What is needed in the original, for instance the marriage certificate, goes once by post.

The application is filed with the court that has jurisdiction under § 122 FamFG, not with a Frankfurt court.

The pension statements for the pension rights adjustment run between the court and the providers without your involvement. This step determines the duration of the proceedings and has nothing to do with distance.

For the hearing you travel to the seat of the court. That is the one day on which geography counts.

Afterwards the decision arrives by post, and with both sides waiving their right of appeal it becomes final at once.

What matters instead of proximity

More important than distance is reachability: a lawyer who calls back, keeps deadlines and explains things clearly is worth more to you from anywhere than one two streets away whom nobody can get on the phone.

For clients outside Frankfurt we work exactly like that: the first conversation by video, documents securely digital, short routes by telephone, and in court wherever your proceedings are running. How much of it can genuinely be done online and where the limit lies is set out under online divorce; the comparison of the two routes is drawn by online divorce or in person?.

How the proceedings run as a whole, from the year of separation to a final decision, is described by how does a divorce work?; what awaits you at the one appointment in person, by the divorce hearing: how it runs in court.

Legal notice: This article is provided for general information and does not replace legal advice in an individual case. Any laws, deadlines and amounts mentioned reflect the state of affairs at the time of publication and may change. A binding assessment requires a personal consultation.