I was asked this question over the weekend.  “How can I determine if my spouse has filed for divorce?” If you have not been served divorce papers yet, how do you know if a divorce case has been filed.  I thought this was a good question.

There are a couple of reasons why someone would want to find out if their spouse had filed for divorce.  Perhaps, your spouse has indicated that they filed or are going to file, but you have not been served any divorce papers yet.  You might be feeling that they are delaying and you plan on filing if they have not yet.

Another reason you might be trying to see if your spouse filed for divorce is out of plain curiosity.  Perhaps the two of you have been having disputes and you have a feeling that your spouse filed for divorce, but your not sure.

Regardless of your reasons for wanting to determine if your spouse filed for divorce, there is only one way to do this.

There is no public database that you can access from your home computer that will let you know if your spouse has filed for divorce.  The only way to check from home is if you have a case number.  Obviously, we do not have a case number in this scenario.

So what you would have to do then i go down to the actual courthouse.  You can go to the local courthouse and have the clerk search by name and date of birth for your name or your spouses name to see if they have filed for divorce.

In Los Angeles County, the family law clerks office has a computer available for public use where you can access the files and search for yourself.

Once you locate the name you are looking for, you can see what the case number is.  Once you have the case number you can use that to access the online case summary off the court website from any computer.

Keep in mind that there is a delay from the time the case is filed until the time it shows up in the courts computer system.