How To File Divorce Court Papers | Filing At San Fernando Court
So, today we’re talking about the process of actually filing papers in court for those folks who will be filing their divorce in the San Fernando Courthouse.
Let’s talk about filing the initial divorce paperwork and let’s just keep it simple, let’s talk about the summons and the petition.
When you go to file your papers, now I’m actually talking about when you walked into court and file your papers.
Now let’s talk specifically about the San Fernando branch, where you go for your Family Law case.
When you walk in to San Fernando court house after you go to the metal detectors, you’re going to make a right hand turn and you’re going to go to the Family Law window.
When you go to file your forms, the clerk is not there to help you organize your forms, put them together for you, they’re going to expect them to be put together correctly and you need to have the right amount of copies of your forms and you have to have your papers especially hole-punched, or they will not accept it.
They might, sometimes they’re nice, sometimes the clerk down there is nice and they’ll punch your form with a special hole-maker, but it’s very important that you get this right.
On your screen, you can see I have the court’s website up, so you can see what they’re telling you to have.
The first thing you want to do, is you want to have, and what I’ve done is I’ve prepared a sample here for you, is when you file your papers , you want to punch these holes in here.
So you can see, I have the two holes punched in the top and this would be your original set. So you’re going to have an original, and two copies. So when you file your forms, let’s say, you just have a summon to petition, you’re going to have your summons, and then you’re going to have two copies of the summons behind it, stapled.
Now you’re not going to hole-punch the other two copies because they’re coming back to you. Then you’re going to have your petition, you’re going to hole-punch it the exact same way, staple it and then put your two copies behind it.
And you hand them to the clerk; you’re going to give them everything. You’re going to give the summon and the petition, the original which will be hole-punched, will be on the top, that’s going to have your original signatures and two copies underneath of each of those forms.
Now, the reason you want two copies is, the clerk is going to issue you a case number, and they’re going to put that right here. And, they’re going to give you two copies; one copy is for your records, the other copy is for you to serve on your spouse. So make sure you have an original and two copies.
And if you walk into the clerk, totally prepared like that, they’re going to feel like you’re totally prepared.
If you have any questions about the divorce process or would like to talk to us about having a professional company preparing your divorce for you, please give us a call and you can reach us at 661-281-0266.
And again my name is Tim Blankenship, owner of SCV Legal Doc Assist, and we specialize in preparing your divorce paperwork.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!