Once I had the Petition and the Affidavit for the Temporary Order completed, I looked up the filing fee required for a petition for divorce with minor children. In our county, the fee was just under $200.
I then wrote a letter to the Clerk of Courts explaining what documents I was providing and the fee I was paying. In addition to the letter and the original, notarized Petition and Affidavit, I also included several copies of each document, stamped “COPY.” I also provided a self-addressed stamped envelope for the Clerk of Courts to use to return to me the filed documents.
And trust me, you need a lot of copies. The Court keeps a copy (or the original). You need a copy for your records. You need a copy on hand to give to your attorney, just in case you need one later. You need a copy for the Respondent. You need a copy for the person that serves the Respondent to sign and attach to the Affidavit or Acknowledgement of Service. And the server might need a copy for their records as well.
Copies, copies, copies. So many copies.
I have binders – several huge, three inch, D-ring binders holding copies of every filing.
Every. single. one.
The sheer volume of paper involved in our litigation is overwhelming. And that is just the filings. And there are more than 360 separate filings to date. Yes, that’s three hundred and sixty filings!
Then there is the correspondence between parties, between attorneys, between the parties and the GAL. And screenshots, photographs, tax returns, medical records, financial records, and more used as exhibits in a hearing. I can’t even wager how many reams or cases of paper I have stored in these binders because rarely, with the exception of the Notice of Hearings, are these documents a single page.
And that is one of the major perils of pro se litigation.
An attorney knows what to file, what constitutes as an acceptable exhibit to be filed with the courts, how to file a proper motion (which is a whole other discussion for another day), and how to appropriately, and respectfully, I might add, communicate with the judge and staff accordingly.
One would hope that a pro se litigant would due a certain level of due diligence and at least make a concerted effort to ensure that documents filed serve a legitimate purpose. I know that I did.
Or that the cases cited are from our own state, or even country. I use Justia to read the decisions of every case I reference. I make sure that it is from a court within our state. The one exception is cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. But even then I check the case records and read the Justices’ opinions to ensure the points are, well, on point.
Filings to the court must meet a certain level to legal merit to serve a legitimate purpose. The term “legitimate legal purpose” or “legitimate purpose” generally refers to a valid, lawful reason for taking an action or filing a legal document. It implies that the action or filing is based on genuine legal grounds and is intended to achieve a legal objective that is recognized by law.
Unfortunately, in pro se litigation, “legitimate purpose” seems to get lost as filings transition from proper legal reasons to those that are frivolous, vexatious, or intended to harass or abuse the legal process. There are actual terms for this type of behavior and they are sanctionable at the judge’s discretion and in accordance with statute.
But will get into that in another post, as this one is already long enough.
So, to summarize today’s discussion. Complete your documents. Get your signature notarized. Make several copies. Search the filing fee. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope (or take it to the Clerk of Courts and personally file it).
Next step. Serving the Respondent.
And, just a reminder, I am not an attorney. Nothing in this post constitutes legal advice; I am merely sharing the lessons I have learned from the School of Hard Knocks, also known as life.
Meadows Cozy Corner 
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