Despite our desire to minimise conflict during separation and divorce, we recognise that sometimes situations escalate. If you’re going through a separation that has become tense or difficult, or you suspect you are being coerced or bullied, your chat history becomes important. Texts, emails, and social media posts are all evidence of what’s happened and can be used in court and mediation.
What messages should you find and save?
When you share your communication history with lawyers or other professionals during your separation, they’re typically looking for messages that show:
Full context of important conversations, not just isolated messages.
Dates and times to establish when things were said.
Patterns of behaviour.
Efforts to communicate reasonably.
Decisions about parenting arrangements.
Discussions about shared finances or property.
Agreements you’ve made verbally that ere confirmed in writing.
The emotional toll of evidence gathering
We understand that re-reading through texts, emails and messages with your ex-partner is emotionally draining. It can be overwhelming to scroll through painful conversations while trying to find the important messages that matter to the case. You’re not alone if you find this process difficult.
Meet Dispute Buddy – Support for your communication evidence
Dispute Buddy was created by someone who’s been in your shoes. Founder Jenny Rudd needed to present texts and emails to Family Court to make her children safe. Now she’s built a tool to help others by preventing them from experiencing the pain of gathering communication-based evidence.
The Dispute Buddy desktop app removes the emotional weight by finding texts between multiple people (including group chats), organising them in chronological order and exporting them in a court-ready document with no effort from you.
How it works
Download the desktop app from the Dispute Buddy website.
Connect iPhone to your computer (Android is coming soon).
Enter contact names of the people whose chat histories you need to use as evidence.
Select date range so we only search for messages in a time frame.
Wait while we find the messages. It usually takes 20-90 minutes, depending on how much data you have on your phone.
Use your phone and computer as normal, just make sure you keep them connected to each other, and plugged into power.
Download your court-ready PDF of message history.
Repeat as many times as you like. Go back and edit date ranges or add more contacts.
Why use Dispute Buddy?
Reduce stress: Scrolling and searching through painful texts is re-traumatising. Dispute Buddy finds them so you stay calm and focused.
Reduce legal costs: When you send your lawyer screenshots, you’ll then be paying them hundreds of dollars an hour to format them into a court-ready document. Dispute Buddy does all the formatting for you, so you aren’t paying your lawyer to do admin tasks.
Move your dispute forward: Our court-ready PDF gets your lawyer up-to-speed quickly, so you can get to a resolution quickly and move on with your life.
Secure and private: Your chat history stays with you. We can’t see a single message. They are downloaded to your desktop, nowhere else.
Tell your story clearly: Arrange your communications in a way that tells your full story.
Feel more in control of your narrative and how your story is presented.
Focus on moving forward instead of getting stuck organising the past.
We’re here for you
If you have questions about Dispute Buddy or need help with collecting your communication evidence, our supportive team is ready to help. You’ll find founder Jenny Rudd on the Live Chat during Australia and New Zealand waking hours. If we’re offline (sleeping!) we’ll email you back within 12 hours.