Family Law Forms

How to save legal expenses by filing family legal forms pro se

A family law firm will help clients with legal relationships between husbands, wives and children. Family court documents are filed in connection with divorce, legal separation, annulments, custody of children, paternity and child support.

For example, the first step in obtaining a divorce is to file a complaint or a petition with a local state court. A divorce form template can be used by a pro se petitioner or plaintiff to help in generating the required document. Such a template may have fields in which you can place the text containing information about your case. Even though a template might be generated by a family law legal forms expert familiar with state law, the template or form may not be accepted by the local court. Also, a state may have up to five different self help divorce forms depending on whether there are children, debts or property. For contested divorces, or more complex divorces, there may be no useful family court divorce forms.

In California and Massachusetts same-sex marriages are allowed, and in many other states and municipalities there are laws concerning domestic partners. Family law documents are needed for domestic partners as well as husbands and wives.

There are a number of ways a pro se litigant can learn how to file family court forms:

1. The local court itself may provide a facilitator or self-help service for individuals, and may provide family law legal forms.
2. Legal aid societies may offer services, especially in cases of domestic violence.
3. The administrators of the state court may, through its website, provide family court forms.
4. Private vendors, sometimes affiliated with family law firms, sell a marriage separation agreement template, self help divorce forms or various family law documents.
5. Online, there are free prenuptial forms and a free child support agreement template.
   

 

Get general information about the particular legal issue requiring family court forms

There are a number of websites that give general explanations of issues in family law.
Try: The Divorce and Family Center of FindLaw.com has 18 categories of family law. The category "Grandparent Rights" has 6 subcategories which define terms and explains the legal background. "Divorce" has 5 subcategories, each with a number of sub-subcategories allowing you to focus on the aspect of divorce you want information about. The categories are linked to state websites so that you can download, at a cost, various family court forms. Understand Your Legal Issue: Family Law of Lawyers.com has 11 categories and is an equally readable and comprehensive digest of the law.

Download family court documents from vendors of such documents

There are a number of websites that sell individual forms. In the case of self help divorce forms, the divorce form templates come in bundles of 4 or 5 forms, depending on the details of the divorce.
Try: Rominger Legal has 5 categories of family court divorce forms, 1 category of prenuptial agreement forms and 2 categories of name-changing forms, all linked to individual states. When you click on the state, you are presented with either a single form or packages of forms. My Divorce Documents.com sells packages for every state.

How to serve family court documents and pleadings

The rules of civil procedures for each state must be followed for a particular court to obtain jurisdiction over a defendant or respondent. This requires service of process or giving legal notice.
Try: Service of process usually involves delivering a summons personally. The court's rules must be followed, if not there is a possibility of default by the defendant. The laws are complex, involving such concepts as substituted service, voluntary acceptance of service and service by mail. The National Association of Professional Process Servers has more information. ServeNow.com provides a list of professional process servers state by state. This website also provides a resource link for each state in case you want to avoid the cost of a process server. 

 

• The websites to the administrators of state courts allow family court forms and family law forms to be downloaded free of charge.

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