Meet the Yorkshire couple who've founded a divorce advice service - with her ex-husband as part of the team

In 2024 there was a 66 per cent increase in financial remedy orders being contested in the family courts and earlier this year, a judge in Plymouth lambasted “a continued saga of cases with disproportionate costs and applications” for cementing the bad reputation of lawyers.

He made the comments after presiding over a dispute about a potential £2,000 in temporary maintenance payments which had resulted in legal costs of almost £9,000 to the wife involved and a further £4,000 to the husband.

It is in that context – and with divorces taking an average 69 weeks to complete – under which Yorkshire couple Karen and Frank Arndt have set up a new service called What Would A Judge Say?

Karen, who hails from Rawdon near Leeds, is a former media and tech executive who previously worked for global advertising giant Dentsu while Frank, who is originally from Germany, is the founder of York-based Paradigm Family Law.

For a cost of £5,000, their service promises to provide couples or individuals with an expert neutral legal opinion within six weeks on how assets in a divorce are likely to be settled. If couples are in agreement on how to proceed, Paradigm Family Law can then progress the divorce for an additional £1,500.

Karen explains: “You hear a lot of complaints from people saying divorce is too expensive, it takes too long and the whole process is very opaque. You just keeping thousands and thousands to divorce lawyers. We said we have to create something better than this.

"The dirty secret in family law is that financial remedy and divorce law is very formulaic. Divorce is broken into three areas; financial remedy, children and legal paperwork to finalise the divorce. If you get the financial remedy, everything else falls into place.

"The number one question everyone asks on day one of divorce is, ‘What would a judge say?’ So we thought, let’s call the company that and we are going to answer that question for people within six weeks and for a fixed fee of £5,000. You can be pretty much done within about four months. Someone said to me the other week, ‘I would have bitten your hand off to get divorced for £6,500’.”

Frank, who was in charge of international family work at Stowe Family Law before founding Paradigm, says some legal firms prioritise making money from clients rather than acting in their best interests to resolve cases quickly.

"With our method, there can still be a disagreement but you can use the legal opinion and go to mediation on any sticking points. Couples are informed very early on – people often don’t know where to start and people in the pub tell them one thing, Google tells them another and it never works.

"If you have the information very early on, it helps the decision-making process. Some solicitors are focusing on the wrong things and aren’t progressing cases and that makes it expensive. When you know what is and isn’t possible, you don’t need to instruct your solicitor to write silly letters.”

He says What Would A Judge Say? echoes the fixed-fee model he already has in place for Paradigm’s broader work based on similar practices in Germany.

"When we started Paradigm with fixed fees, the press and some top law firms were saying it wouldn’t work. Ten years on, we are still here and still doing fantastic business. We disrupted the whole hourly rate model in England. I feel here it is again disrupting the legal market because it is there to disrupt.”

The concept, which the couple believe is a world-first, was only rolled out earlier this year but was shortlisted for Best Innovation at this week’s 2025 Modern Law Private Client Awards.

The business is in its early days and is initially focusing on London, Manchester and Yorkshire and has had about 20 clients so far, in addition to “lots of interest”.

Karen says that in addition to couples jointly seeking ‘amicable divorces’, there has been interest from individuals trying to establish if they can afford to get divorced, as well as others already in litigation who want a fresh opinion.

In addition to the couple's own impressive CVs, their fellow co-founder Rupert Whitehead is a former senior developer for Google. Their chairman is Maarten Albarda, who is not only a marketing specialist whose previous roles include being global director of media for Coca-Cola, but is also Karen’s ex-husband and the father of her son.

Karen says: "People are amazed when they find out and ask – how can you work with your husband and your ex-husband? But when you are around so much divorce and discord, you would really rather see the glass half-full and have a positive disposition.

“Especially when you have children, I divorced my husband not the father of my child. We all went to our son’s university graduation together as a four with Maarten and his wife. It is a bit sad that is such a talking point.

"I don’t believe you need that bitterness of 69 weeks to get divorced and tearing strips off each other. If we can make it a little bit easier for people, then that would be great.”

Frank adds that Maarten is also involved with Paradigm Family Law. “We’re like brothers together.”

Perhaps unexpectedly for a divorce lawyer, Frank says his initial advice to couples considering the move is to try and repair their relationships. "I always say, try and sort it out and ring me in six months if it hasn’t worked. You need to step back and see what you are giving up, as the grass is not always greener on the other side."

But he adds that for those who do decide to go ahead, a better future is possible. "There’s always hope and you should always think about where you want to be in 12 months after a divorce. There is light at the end of the tunnel.”