See the notebook before you buy it.

The hardest part of getting ready for a custody hearing without a lawyer is often not the law. It is the paper. A custody case turns into text messages, school records, medical bills, a calendar, witnesses, and a stack of documents nobody labeled. All of it real. None of it findable when it matters. Attorneys solve that with a trial notebook. An organized system that keeps a whole case in one place, so every document, every witness, and every exhibit has one home. The only problem is that nobody hands a self-represented parent one. That is what the Steadycase Custody Trial Notebook is. The same structure, rebuilt for a parent with no legal training, by a licensed family-law attorney. It is important to understand what this is. It is an organization tool. It does not apply the law to anyone’s situation. It does not choose a strategy. It does not promise a result, and using it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It organizes your facts and points you toward your state’s official sources. Inside, it runs to twenty-four sections, the same in the spreadsheet and in the print binder, and it opens by asking where you are. A parent who is thinking about filing starts on a section written for plaintiffs. Residency, which court has venue, the records to gather, and a plain list of what is being asked for. A parent who has just been served starts somewhere else, on a section for the first days, with a place to take the petition apart a paragraph at a time. And when something cannot wait, that has a section of its own, open to either parent. From there it widens out. State Rules, where you record the official sources for your own state. Custody, the heart of it, organized around the factors courts may consider. Exhibits and witnesses, each with one place and each pointing at the other. And the closing sections, where it becomes the specific orders you are asking for, and a last pass before you walk in. Child support has a section of its own. Every state has its own Child Support Guidelines, and most have an official calculator. No two are quite the same. So the notebook gathers the figures those calculators ask for and points you to your own state’s source for the number itself. The digital edition is sixty-nine dollars, one time, and it works in Excel and Google Sheets. If you would rather work on paper, there is a Print Edition at forty-nine dollars, a fillable PDF binder with a continuation pack included. Both are at getsteadycase.com. One place to put it all, before you walk in.

Family court runs on state rules. Every state has its own deadlines, its own forms, its own fees, and its own list of what a court weighs in a custody case. Which means a notebook that shipped one set of answers would be wrong almost everywhere it went. So the Custody Trial Notebook opens with a section that arrives mostly empty, on purpose. State Rules is where your state’s answers go. There are rows waiting for the things you will reach for more than once. The response deadline. The counter-claim window. The discovery deadlines. The jurisdiction citation. The best-interest statute. The child-support guidelines statute. The evidence rules. The trial procedure rules. There is a fee table. What it costs to file, to counter-file, to issue a subpoena, to get certified copies, and whether a waiver is available where you are. There is a resource block. Your court’s self-help center. The state bar referral line. Legal aid. Pro bono services. The official child-support calculator. The court forms site. A domestic-violence hotline for your area. And there are fifteen numbered rows for your own state’s best-interest factors, with a column beside each one for the citation. It also says to take this at your own pace. A good first step, in its own words, is to fill in a row at a time, whenever it helps, and come back to it anytime. The print edition adds: start here even if you do not know every answer, because partial rules and links beat searching from scratch. The notebook also tells you where to get the answers. Official court, legislature, or agency sources where possible, and it warns you off third-party form and calculator sites you cannot verify. And it names its own companion. If you have Steadycase Compass for your state, the notebook says to keep it open while you fill this in. Compass is the reference guide that points to the official court rules, statutes, forms, and calculator links. This is the least interesting hour you will spend in the notebook. It will be a productive hour, though, because time spent up front saves time for you in the future. The Custody Trial Notebook. Sixty-nine dollars for the digital edition, forty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

Some people arrive at a custody case because they were served with papers. Others arrive because they decided to initiate a court filing. This is about the second kind. There is a great deal written for a parent who has just been served. There is much less for the parent standing at the beginning, wondering what has to be in place before a case can be filed at all. The Custody Trial Notebook has a section for exactly that parent. Its first line says this is for plaintiffs initiating a custody, visitation, or child-support case. Use before filing. It begins as a readiness checklist. Residency. Which court has venue. Whether the state is the child’s home state. Income and support records. A log of who has the children and when. A list of what is being asked for. The filing fee, or an application to waive it. And a safety plan, if one is needed. Every line carries a status and a date, so where each item stands is visible at a glance. Residency, venue and jurisdiction all vary by state, and the notebook points to your own state’s official sources for each one. Under that, a jurisdiction and venue worksheet. How long each parent has lived in the state. Which county. Whether the same parties have already had a family case, and if so, its case number. And if you have Steadycase Compass for your state, it points you to the official court rules and statutes behind those answers. Then a document tracker. Tax returns, bank and investment statements, pay stubs, any orders already in place. One column for what the document is, another for where you keep it, so you can find it again. And a weekly grid. Mornings, afternoons, evenings, overnights, Monday through Sunday. An ordinary week, written down while it is still ordinary. The last part is a list of what can be asked for. Legal custody. Physical custody. Parenting time. Child support. Right of first refusal. Relocation. Parentage. Each with room for a specific ask and a priority beside it. Child support is gathered here. Every state has its own Child Support Guidelines, and most have an official calculator. No two are quite the same. The notebook collects the figures that you can input into your state’s calculator. This section does not file your case for you. Rather, it helps you collect the information needed for filing. It gives you a solid, organized foundation upon which you can build your strongest case. The Custody Trial Notebook. Sixty-nine dollars for the digital edition, forty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

Someone hands you an envelope, or leaves it at your door. Inside is a petition with your name on it, and a set of requests you did not choose. What follows is usually a scramble, and it is a poor time to organize anything. There is a document to understand, a response to prepare, and no obvious place to put any of it. The Custody Trial Notebook has a section for those first days. Its first line says who it is for. For defendants. It opens with a checklist for the first days. Thirteen items, each carrying a priority, a box to tick, and a place for the date it was done. It is the most specific part of the notebook, and it is there for the days when nothing else feels orderly. Then a response deadline worksheet. A place for the date you were served. A place for the response period your own state sets. And a place for the date itself. In the spreadsheet the arithmetic is done for you. In the print binder you work the date out and write it in. The response period comes from your own state’s rules, and it differs from state to state. Both editions tell you to look it up and record it in State Rules, so it is written down in one place. And if you have Steadycase Compass for your state, it points you to the official court rules, so finding the period is a lookup rather than a search. Then there is a tracker for the petition itself. One row for each numbered paragraph. A column for what the paragraph alleges, a column for the response, and a column linking the evidence that bears on it. A wall of text becomes a list that can be worked through line by line. There is a table for what the other side has asked the court for, item by item, with room for a position beside each one. And a section for working through whether to bring claims of your own. Child support is gathered here. Every state has its own Child Support Guidelines, and most have an official calculator. The notebook collects the figures that go into that calculation, and gives you a place to record the result. None of this makes the envelope more welcome. But there is a difference between a case that is happening to you and a case you have a file on. That section exists to get a parent from the first to the second. The Custody Trial Notebook. Sixty-nine dollars for the digital edition, forty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

Most of a custody case moves at the pace of a calendar. Hearings get scheduled. Filings go in. Dates arrive when the rules say they arrive. Some situations do not fit that pace. The Custody Trial Notebook has a section for those, and it is open to either parent. It can come up before anything is filed, in the days after being served, or in the middle of a case that is already running. What the section does is narrow, and worth saying exactly. It helps separate urgent facts from ordinary disagreement, and it keeps the request, the evidence, the witnesses and the dates together in one place. There is a table for recording a concern. What it is. Whether there is evidence already in hand. What has been done about it, and when. Facts and dates, rather than a general feeling. There is a second table for the types of relief that may be available, with a column for where each one may be filed. On the question of whether a situation belongs here at all, the notebook points outward. If violence, stalking, coercive control, or child-safety concerns are present, it says to consider contacting a domestic-violence advocate, a legal-aid office, or a lawyer. It also carries a privacy note, and for the people this section is written for it may be the most useful thing in it. If someone else has access to your phone, your computer, or a shared cloud account, they may be able to read whatever you put in the notebook. So it says to think about where you keep the file, to avoid shared devices, and to consider putting a password on it. An advocate can help you pick a safe option. This is one of the shortest sections in the notebook. It is there to get facts and dates into order quickly, so that when you do speak to an advocate or a lawyer, you have them in front of you. The Custody Trial Notebook. Sixty-nine dollars for the digital edition, forty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

If a custody case has a center, this is it. The section where what you know about your own family gets organized into something a court can follow. It is built around the factors courts may consider. Primary caretaking history. The parent-child relationship. How settled the child is at home and at school. Each parent’s capacity. Willingness to support the child’s relationship with the other parent. Stability. Health. Safety. The child’s wishes, where age-appropriate. And whatever else matters in your case. Your own state may enumerate those differently, and the notebook says so plainly. It points you back to State Rules to record the citation, then lets you adapt these pages to your own jurisdiction. Each factor is a working page rather than a blank line. There is room for your position, the facts that support it, the exhibits, the witnesses, and a priority. The print edition puts it well. The pages are intentionally roomy, because a single factor can carry many facts. Alongside that runs a parenting-time log. Morning, afternoon, evening, overnight, day after day, with a column for anything that departed from the usual schedule and a column linking the exhibit that shows it. Sixty rows are ready, and long cases go well past sixty. There is a map of where things stand against where you want them to be. For each topic, the current order or practice, what the other side is asking for, and what you are asking for, side by side. There is a parenting plan builder. The school-year schedule. Holidays. Summers. Exchanges. Decision-making. Communication. Right of first refusal. Relocation. Dispute resolution. And a block for military deployment, if that is part of your family. There is a section for grandparents and relatives seeking custody themselves, built around what courts often look for on standing. A dual timeline runs alongside it. Family events down one column, court events down the other, so the story and the docket stay legible without collapsing into each other. And child support has its own section. Children, overnights, income, health insurance, child care, other support already ordered. Every state has its own Child Support Guidelines, and most have an official calculator. The notebook gathers the figures that go into that calculation, and gives you somewhere to write down the result. Everything in it is knowledge you already have about your own family. What the section adds is somewhere to put it, and a shape to keep it in, so that when you need one particular fact, you can put your hand on it. The Custody Trial Notebook. Sixty-nine dollars for the digital edition, forty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

Every custody case ends up with a pile of proof. Screenshots. School records. Photographs. A letter from a doctor. Messages you saved because something about them mattered. The trouble is never that you lack evidence. It is that the evidence is scattered, and when a hearing is coming, you cannot lay your hand on the one thing you need. The Proof section of the Custody Trial Notebook gives every piece of it one home. Exhibits go in a numbered list. Each one gets a number, a description, and a place to record where the original came from. Your exhibits stay separate from the other side’s, so the two never blur together. Witnesses get their own list. Who they are, how to reach them, and what they know about. Then the section does the thing a shoebox cannot. It links them. Each exhibit can point to the witness connected to it, and to the issue it relates to. So instead of a stack of paper, you have a map of what connects to what. There is a column for foundation notes. Courts have rules about how a document gets accepted into evidence, and those rules vary. The notebook cannot teach you those rules or apply them to your case. However, it gives you a place to write down what you find out next to the exhibit it belongs to, so it is where you need it. There is a column for admission status too. As a case moves, some exhibits are accepted and some are not. One glance tells you where each one stands. The same section tracks discovery requests and subpoenas. What was sent, what came back, what is still outstanding. None of this decides your case. It is organization, not advice. But walking in with your proof numbered, linked and in one place is a different experience from carrying a box. The Custody Trial Notebook. Sixty-nine dollars for the digital edition, forty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

By the time a trial date is close, the notebook is not empty. Exhibits have numbers. Witnesses have roles. There is a log of who had the children when. The last sections turn that into what you work from when you are in court. The notebook itself is not filed with the court, but it organizes the presentation you will be giving. It starts with relief requested. One row for each contested issue. What is being asked for, the legal basis where it is known, a priority, and which exhibits and witnesses stand behind it. It is not only for the parent who started the case. The section says so in its own opening lines. Both sides ask for relief. Then the pretrial statement, which goes in ahead of trial rather than being written at it. Nature of the case, jurisdiction, uncontested facts, contested issues, witnesses, exhibits, relief. Each part names the earlier section it draws from. You gather the content here, then put it on whatever form your court requires. Then two outlines that are easy to underestimate. One for the opening statement, one for the closing argument. They are kept separate because they have different purposes. The opening statement outlines a theme in one sentence. Then room for what the evidence will show, issue by issue, custody, decision-making and parenting time, support. Then the relief you are asking for. The closing argument presents your request for relief to the court in an organized way. The theme again, what the evidence actually showed, a place to answer the other side’s case, the legal standard where one applies, and the specific ask at the end. Neither writes a word for you. They give you the shape, already in order. Every date goes in one place. The deadline, where it came from, the date that started the clock, and the date it falls on. Here the editions differ. In the spreadsheet the arithmetic is done for you. In the print binder you work the date out and write it in. Both editions point you to the clerk to confirm it. And at the end, a readiness pass. In the spreadsheet it is a live page called Checks, eight tests across the whole file, each reading OK or needs review, pointing at the column to fix and updating as you work. In the binder it is a readiness checklist you walk through yourself, section by section. The same list gets looked at either way. That is what the last sections are for. A file you have been through, in an order you can follow, before you walk into the courtroom. The Custody Trial Notebook. Sixty-nine dollars for the digital edition, forty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com