Family Court Prep Field Guide
A starter guide for getting oriented before you build a full trial notebook.
A free 12-page print-at-home PDF for a self-represented parent or spouse with a family-court hearing on the calendar. The guide is general and national, not state-specific. It sorts hearing preparation into five buckets and ten working sections, including a 7-Day Prep Sprint.
Legal information, not legal advice. The guide does not tell you what to file, what legal position to take, how a judge will rule, or what deadlines apply in your case.
Enter a real email address. A confirmation email arrives first; the confirm button opens the Field Guide. The guide is general legal information, not legal advice, and is current as of its publication date. Always verify requirements with your court's official sources. Do not send case facts or documents.
The core idea: five buckets
The guide is a first-pass planning tool for self-represented family-court litigants. It sorts preparation into five buckets.
- IssuesWhat the court is being asked to decide.
- FactsWhat happened, when, and who knows it firsthand.
- ProofWhat supports the facts.
- RulesWhat official forms and procedures apply.
- RequestWhat order is being asked for, in plain language.
Ten working sections
The guide is a map of the preparation categories. Print it at home and fill in the ten working sections.
- Start Here
- Case Snapshot
- Deadlines and Court Dates
- Timeline Builder
- Evidence Inventory
- Witness Planner
- Issue Prompts
- Official Sources Checklist
- Hearing-Day Readiness
- 7-Day Prep SprintOne focused task per day.
Inside the guide: dates, facts, and sources
A capture sheet, not a calculator
The Deadlines and Court Dates page is a capture sheet. You write down each date and the source of that date, so each date can be verified later. The rule on that page is to locate dates, not guess them.
Facts before conclusions
The guide teaches the difference between a fact and a conclusion. “School emailed both parents about 14 absences” is a timeline entry. “The other parent is irresponsible” is a conclusion.
Official sources first
The Official Sources Checklist is a lesson in source hygiene. It points to state judiciary and county court pages, state child-support agency pages, and legal-aid and self-help resources. It advises caution with anonymous blog posts, outdated third-party calculators, forum comments, and AI answers that do not link to official sources.
Two free guides and the paid notebooks
Steadycase publishes two separate free guides. The Field Guide maps the whole preparation, category by category. The Document Everything Method is the daily habit that fills one of those categories.
The Steadycase Trial Notebooks (Custody, Divorce, and Financial Divorce) are the paid working system. Compare the notebooks.
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