Surviving DIY Divorce: Dealing with the Court Clerk

Anyone is allowed to file for divorce without an attorney, even if you have minor children.We hear pro se filers report this one the most. However, almost without fail, when we contact the very same court clerk's office, often just minutes later, we end up getting a different answer. It usually goes something like this:

DivorceWriter: "I'm getting ready to file for divorce without an attorney. My spouse and I agree on everything. Is your office going to refuse to accept my paperwork just because (insert your reason: my spouse and I have minor children together, my paperwork was prepared online, etc.) or will I at least be allowed to file my documents and get them in front of the judge?"

Court Clerk: (After a long pause) "We'll accept anything you want to file, but if the judge rejects it, you'll lose your filing fee."

To be sure, if you file divorce paperwork and the judge decides it's not legally sufficient, especially if there's a problem with the initial pleadings like the divorce petition, and you do nothing about it, the judge can dismiss your case and you may well have to pay another filing fee when you file for divorce again down the road, either with an attorney or on your own. However, generally speaking, the judge's office will notify you if there are deficiencies in your divorce paperwork and give you a certain amount of time to file amended documents. This isn't always easy since not all rejection notices tell you exactly what's wrong, which means you'll either need to figure it quickly or hire an attorney to figure it out for you. Still, understand that it isn't like the judge looks at your paperwork, decides it's junk and tosses your file in the trash. You paid a filing fee and have been assigned a case number, and there's a protocol in every court for how cases are handled when incorrect or insufficient documents are filed.

I think a more helpful and less intimidating way for them to say this would be "don't expect any favors just because you don't have an attorney." In other words, anyone who represents someone in a court of law is expected to have a basic understanding of the process and the rules, and this includes someone representing him or herself. However, to say that a pro se filer has to know "everything that an attorney knows" is just plain silly. For one thing, an attorney is only going to utilize a certain portion of his or her legal knowledge when handling a divorce case. Uncontested divorce cases where spouses have agreed on all matters, which are the best candidates for do-it-yourself divorce, are mostly a matter of filing the right paperwork at the right time.