Filing your divorce paperwork: what to expect at the courthouse

Filing sounds intimidating, but it's mostly an errand. You bring your completed forms to the clerk of the court in the right county, pay the filing fee, and the clerk stamps your case as officially open. Many courts now let you do this online.

The most common reason a packet gets bounced is a small technicality: a missing signature, the wrong form for your county, or copies that aren't in the order the clerk expects. That's exactly the kind of detail we handle for you, so what you bring is the set your court actually accepts.

Once you've filed, your next job is to formally notify your spouse, and then follow your checklist through your state's waiting period to the final decree. Keep a couple of certified copies of that decree when it's done, you'll need them later for banks and the DMV.