Divorce & Separation

This is the fastest, cheapest way to get a divorce in California, but most people do not qualify. You can only obtain a summary dissolution of your marriage if you have been married for less than 5 years, you have no kids, you do not own real estate, you owe less than $7,000 in jointly-owed debt, excluding cars, and you have less than $50k (ish) in jointly-owned assets in addition to less than $50k (ish) in separately-owned assets (excluding cars). If you meet these criteria, you may not even need a lawyer to complete your divorce. Read here for more info on the criteria for summary dissolution, the forms you need, and the filing fees required.

If you don’t qualify for summary dissolution, you can still finalize your divorce within 6 months and with minimal legal fees if you and your former partner agree on the terms of your divorce. You will start the process by filing a petition for divorce (see “The Divorce Process,” below.) After that, you and your spouse will need to share declarations regarding your assets and debts and your income and expenses. Then, if you both agree on all terms such as child custody, support, asset division and debt allocation, you can submit your agreement to the court to obtain a final judgment.

If you and your partner agree on the terms of your divorce, you may be able to avoid hiring an attorney altogether. You can find detailed steps for completing an uncontested divorce here. If you have children and/or significant assets or debt, though, it is a good idea to at least have an attorney look over and talk to you about your agreement before submitting it to the court.

If you and your former partner disagree on some or all of the terms of your divorce, the process may take longer than the minimum 6 months required to finalize a divorce in California. If your former partner has already hired an attorney, you should also hire an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, but your spouse can, you can get a court order requiring your spouse to pay all or a fair share of your attorney fees per section 2030 of the Family Code.

Contested divorces can involve hearings and trials on issues like domestic violence, custody, child support, spousal support, and asset division. Preparation for these hearings requires attorneys to gather information from you and the other party. This may involve depositions, requests for records, formal written questions, and other forms of “discovery.” Discovery is the formal process to obtain information in court cases. Sometimes parties can reach settlement agreements with the help of lawyers and in the course of the discovery process. Other times, trials are necessary to obtain a final judgment. It is possible for both parties to represent themselves in contested divorce cases using the self-help center, but the process can be overwhelming and complex. You should never represent yourself if your former partner has an attorney.

Legal separation is not actually a type of divorce, but it can accomplish nearly all of the same things, other than dissolving your marriage. Some people choose legal separation if they do not believe in divorce. Others obtain legal separation to maintain insurance or other benefits. Legal separation is also a work-around for California’s residency and waiting period requirements for divorce. To obtain a divorce, you must have lived in California for a minimum of 6 months prior to filing, and in the county where you want to file for at least 3 months. These residency requirements do not apply for legal separation – you can file a petition for legal separation right after you move to California or the county of your choice. Then, after you meet residency requirements for divorce, you can amend your paperwork to request a divorce rather than legal separation. The time that has elapsed since your former partner responded to your legal separation petition counts toward the 6-month waiting period to finalize your divorce.

Legal separation agreements can encompass all aspects of a divorce, including child custody, visitation, and support, spousal support, and property division and debt allocation. You can obtain a legal separation now and petition for divorce in the future if your circumstances change.

Sometimes people filing for divorce do so in crisis-mode. Perhaps your spouse is being abusive to you or your children, or is recklessly mishandling assets that belong to both of you. In these situations, you will need to file an ex parte request for the judge to make immediate orders to stop irreversible harm or file a request for a restraining order. You can file a request for a restraining order without opening a family law case, but for other “ex parte” orders, you will need to begin a family law case to obtain a court order to protect you, your children, or your property. If something is time-sensitive but not a true emergency, you can file a request for order (see Request Temporary Orders, below) and request the judge shorten time on the hearing, so you get the order faster.

• Petition: Form FL-100 outlines basic information about you and your marriage and the categories of things you will be asking the court to order, such as child custody and spousal support. You can amend this document later but it is better take your time and decide what you want the first time you file after consulting with an attorney or someone with extensive experience on pitfalls to avoid. The Legislature recently passed a law allowing spouses to file a joint petition for dissolution, which takes full effect in 2026.
• Summons: Form FL-110 tells your former partner how to respond and where to show up for divorce or separation proceedings.
• ATROs: Automatic temporary restraining orders (ATROs) take effect the moment you serve your petition and summons on your spouse. The precise terms of the ATROs are written on the divorce summons (FL-110). These temporary restraining orders restrict both of your from doing things like:
  • Removing your children from the state
  • Applying for passports for the children without the other parent’s consent
  • Making “extraordinary expenditures,” generally, spending money for things outside of what is normal for you both
  • Changing the beneficiaries on insurance policies or cancelling insurance for anyone in your family
• Additional Forms for Kids: If you and your former partner have minor children, you will also need form FL-105 to provide the court with information about who your kids are, where they live, and if any other pending court cases involve them.
• Filing Fee: You’ll need to pay the filing fee of $435 or apply for a fee waiver.
• Initial Disclosures: Within 60 days of filing your initial paperwork, you will need to provide disclosures about your income, expenses, assets, debts, and property to your spouse. You don’t have to file these with the court. Your spouse will have to provide you with the same information within 60 days of filing their response to your petition.

You can request temporary orders for things you need while your divorce case is pending. These can include requests for custody and visitation, child and spousal support, decisions on who lives in the house, or any other issue you and your spouse cannot agree upon while your divorce is pending. The main form you will fill out to bring these requests is form FL-300. If you hire an attorney, he or she will help you prepare a declaration to support your request, along with exhibits. You may file other forms with your FL-300 depending on the nature of your request. If you are asking for money, you will need to submit financial disclosures to the court. You may also need to submit forms specific to the change you want, such as FL-311 for custody and visitation. For any temporary order you need, if you and your spouse agree on the terms, you can submit your agreement to the court and request it become a court order. If you need a hearing on your requests, you can bring multiple requests at once to save on filing fees and attorney fees.

If you and your former partner agree on all of the terms of your divorce, you can submit forms to the court to obtain a final judgment. In contested cases, however, you will need to litigate the issues you cannot agree on first. Some issues can be “bifurcated” or handled separately. A common issue to bifurcate is marital status: some couples want to be officially divorced before all issues in their case are resolved, so that they can remarry, for example. The court is required to give priority to trials on child custody and support, which can be decided separately from other issues. Many times, spouses will agree on some issues in their divorce and handle others via a trial.

If your case will involve a trial or hearings on contested issues, your attorney will most likely obtain information from the other party through the discovery process. This commonly includes:

• Depositions (questioning someone under oath)
• Form Interrogatories (standard questions used in family law cases)
• Special Interrogatories (questions specific to your case)
• Requests for Production of Documents (way to obtain documents from the other party, like emails, financial records, text messages, etc.)
• Subpoenas Duces Tecum (way to obtain documents from a third party, such as a bank, hospital, social media provider, etc.)

Before your case goes to trial, you will be required to attend at least one settlement conference and mediation if children are involved. Your attorney will prepare a summary of the issues prior to your settlement conference. Sometimes you can reach an agreement that will eventually become part of the final judgment during mediation or the settlement conference. Other times, your case will proceed to trial and your attorney will prepare a trial brief outlining all of the facts and issues for the judge to decide and a set of exhibits your attorney will introduce at trial. At trial, both sides will present their evidence and arguments. The judge will state his or her decision sometimes right at the end of the trial, or sometimes later.

Once all issues in the case have been decided or agreed upon, your attorney will submit final judgment forms to the court, with all of the agreements and court decisions made on the individual issues in your case attached.

Then you are done! It may seem impossible now but you WILL get here!