Doc Aims to Deliver 'Enema' to Divorce Court System

This afternoon's screening event at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art included a Q&A discussion presented by the National Parents Organization of Utah. The panel for tomorrow night's showing at the Center for the Arts in Jackson Hole, Wyoming will be moderated by the film's first-time director Joseph Surge.

It's all part of the ongoing January roll out for Divorce Corp., a feature documentary and companion book designed to expose layers of corruption and abuse enveloping the business of getting a U.S. divorce. A review of the book from celebrity NYC divorce attorney Douglas Kepanis frames the topic well:

"This book needed to be written. As a high-profile divorce attorney in Manhattan, I see law firms overbill routinely. Rather than make a 15-minute phone call to resolve a matter, they draft and file a motion and bill for ten hours. I recently saw an attorney bill a client 21 hours for a motion that typically takes five."

"The offending attorney’s client was the non-moneyed spouse, so the Court ordered my client to pay for the abuse. To paraphrase the Joker in Batman, ‘The system needs an enema’. Divorce Corp. is poised to administer just such.”

What's significant about Sunday's screening is that director Surge is a part-time resident of Jackson Hole. He told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that as with so many other things, the Scandinavians do it better:

“We went to Scandinavia to compare the way they process divorces versus the U.S.,” he said. “It is so different and so much more humane: no courts, no lawyers. Typically they just use an accountant to divide up the assets.”

Surge used to work in biotech before seguing to the entertainment and reality TV industries. He divides his time between Wyoming and Southern California, and it is through those Hollywood connections that he was able to get Dr. Drew Pinsky to do the documentary voice-over narration.

[Divorce Corp. special screening]