Manchester lawyer Thomas Fiorentino noticed the trend before a lot of others did.

It really started a decade or so ago, he says, and the pace picked up about five years ago. More and more parties in family law cases were trying to represent themselves. “People seem to think that they can get all the answers off the Internet,” Fiorentino said. “People don’t have the money. All the forms are there on the web, and they just try to do it themselves.”