Controversial adverts push on-line divorce savings

CAMPAIGN: targets young professionals drinking in the City

A controversial new advertising campaign is highlighting the amount of money that can be saved by using an on-line divorce facility rather than a face-to-face family lawyer.

Pioneering on-line divorce Web site Divorce-Online asked 20 London-based family firms how much they charged for a straightforward and uncontested divorce.

The company said the answer was an average of 800 plus court fees - significantly higher than the on-line cost, which starts at 80.

The advert, aimed at men - placed in male toilets in bars across the City - asks: 'What is the difference between a divorce lawyer and Divorce-Online?' It answers: 'About 288 pints of lager.'

The female version, headlined 'Free lippy!', claims the money saved by divorcing on-line can be spent on 'about 120 decent lipsticks'.

Last year, the infamous 'Ditch the Bitch' campaign by London divorce solicitor Henry Brookman also used adverts in City toilets.

Mark Keenan, Divorce-Online's operations director, denied that the adverts were encouraging people to divorce and trivialising the issues.

'We are trying to draw attention to the price difference between divorcing on-line and using a lawyer,' he said.

'The images we use are fairly obvious and immediate, and they are specifically targeted at young City professionals.'

Meanwhile, Henry Brookman's latest publicity stunt is a survey which found that more than one-third of professional footballers have been unfaithful to their partners and are targeted by 'gold diggers'.

The survey of 175 footballers' agents also found that 9% of footballers were divorced or separated.

Victoria MacCallum