LAW firms across Dorset and the rest of the country are bracing themselves for a surge of New Year enquiries as hundreds of couples are expected to file for divorce today.

January 10 has been dubbed D-Day by lawyers as it’s the critical day of the year when feuding couples are most likely to start divorce proceedings. It falls at the start of the first full working week after New Year.

Lawyers deal with more people contemplating an end to their marriage in January than at any other time of the year, and the days just after Christmas are particularly volatile.

“The festive season can highlight and exacerbate issues and bring them to a head in the New Year,” said Liz Allen, partner at south west solicitors Stephens Scown.

“I think it’s the pressure of couples spending vast amounts of time together. Financial, emotional and family issues combined with extra events, activities and stress can sometimes end in an anti-climax.

“Many decide that after this, they’ve had enough and things need to change. It may be the final straw, and a chance to start afresh.”

Although divorce rates in England are at their lowest for nearly 30 years, around 140,000 couples will obtain a decree absolute this year.

That’s still a significant figure, and companies are cottoning on to the fact that more and more people are actually celebrating the end of their nuptials, together with the business possibilities that the demise of a marriage can now offer.

Goods for the recently divorced include the sort of accessories usually offered for hen parties – flashing Just Divorced L-plates, sashes and badges, Free Again ties and aprons, and even a ball and chain.

You can have divorce parties and divorce cakes (the most popular design mimics a traditional wedding cake but the model bride is pushing the groom off the top). And for a real sense of ceremony, how about a miniature coffin for your wedding band to ‘give a dead marriage its proper, final resting place’?

In 2009 the first ever divorce show rather cheerfully offered “an empowering resource for people going through divorce and breakup” with free legal, financial and relationship advice, parenting coaches, and holistic healers – all under one roof.