See the notebook before you buy it.

The hardest part of getting ready for a divorce without a lawyer is often not the law. It is the paper.

A divorce case turns into pay stubs, bank statements, titles, pension paperwork, 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 that system to a self-represented person.

That is what the Steadycase Divorce Trial Notebook is. The same structure, rebuilt for a person 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 on a table for where you are.

A person who is thinking about filing starts on a section written for plaintiffs. Residency, which court, the records to gather, and a plain list of what is being asked for.

A person 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.

From there it widens out. State Rules. Financial. Property, in two parts: what you own, then support and retirement. Custody, if there are minor children. Exhibits and witnesses. Then the orders you are asking for, and a last pass before you walk in.

State Rules arrives mostly empty, on purpose. Deadlines and fees differ by state, so the notebook does not ship one set of answers. It gives those answers one home, and points you to official court, legislature, and agency sources to fill them in.

Spousal support has a place on Property. Some states call it alimony, some maintenance, some partner support, and not every state awards it. The notebook holds the factors courts often weigh. It does not compute a number.

When there are minor children, child support has a place on the Custody tab. Every state has its own Child Support Guidelines, and most have an official calculator. No two are quite the same. So there is a place for the figures those calculators ask for, and a pointer to your own state's source for the number itself.

The digital edition is ninety-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 sixty-nine dollars, a fillable PDF binder.

Both are at getsteadycase.com. One place to put it all, before you walk in.

Family court runs on state rules. Every state sets its own deadlines, its own forms, its own fees, and its own list of what a court weighs.

Which means a notebook that shipped one set of answers would be wrong almost everywhere it went.

So the Divorce 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 discovery deadlines. The evidence rules. The trial procedure rules. Two more are in this notebook and not in the custody one: a financial-statement deadline, and a property-statement deadline.

There are also rows for UCCJEA, a parenting-plan rule, and a child-support calculator URL. They matter when there are minor children. If there are not, the Custody section is not used.

There is a fee table. What it costs to file, to counter-file, to issue a subpoena, to get certified copies, and whether a fee waiver is available where you are. The notebook says to confirm current amounts.

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.

And there are fifteen numbered rows for your own state's best-interest factors, with a column beside each one for the citation. That is where you write the list your state actually uses.

Lower on the page, a line for how your state models child support, and a line for how it divides property.

The notebook also says where to get those answers: your state's court website, its self-help materials, and bar association resources. For the calculator it points to your state's judiciary or human services department, and says not to use third-party or anonymous calculator sites.

It also says to take this at your own pace, a row at a time, whenever it helps. The print edition adds: start here even if you do not know every answer, because partial rules, deadlines, and links beat searching from scratch.

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 this notebook. It will be a productive hour, though. Filling it in early is what makes the other tabs correct for your case.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

Some people arrive at a divorce case because they were served with papers. Others arrive because they decided to file. This is about the second kind.

Almost everything written for that person is about filing. The forms, the fee, where to take them. Much less of it is about readiness, and readiness is what should be in place before a case is filed at all.

The Divorce Trial Notebook has a section for exactly that person. Its first line says this is for plaintiffs. Use before filing a case. That includes a modification. Non-parents filing for custody are plaintiffs here too.

It begins as a readiness checklist. Residency. Which court has venue. Whether the state is the child's home state, when that applies. Grounds. Financial 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 grounds 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 spouse has lived in the state. Which county. Whether the same parties have already had a family case, and if so, its case number.

Then a document tracker, on this same section. Tax returns. Bank and investment statements. Retirement accounts. Pay stubs. Debts. Titles and deeds. One column for what the document is, another for where you keep it, so you can find it again. Most of those records feed the Financial section later.

When the case involves children, 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. Custody, if there are children. Child support. Alimony. The marital home. Property division. Grounds. A name change. Each with room for a specific ask and a priority beside it. Some of those items are only available in certain states. Child support, when it is on the list, is not calculated here. The Custody section holds the figures your state's calculator asks for.

This section does not file your case for you. It is a place to collect the information needed for filing, a solid, organized foundation upon which you can build your strongest case.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-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 Divorce 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. Each line carries 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. It is recorded 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. Custody, support, the house, property, grounds. And a section for working through whether to bring claims of your own.

Child support, when it is on that list, is not calculated here. Every state has its own Child Support Guidelines, and most have an official calculator. The notebook points to the Custody section for the figures those calculators ask for, and 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 person from the first to the second.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

A divorce case turns on money as much as it turns on anything else, and that means what comes in, what goes out, what is owned, and what is owed. The Divorce Trial Notebook has a section for that.

It is titled Financial, and it covers income, expenses, assets, and debts. The content here feeds the sworn financial statement most states require.

Amounts are entered as a monthly equivalent, so a weekly figure and an annual figure can share the same column. Variable income has a place for a longer average, and a place to note the timeframe.

Monthly income is a table. Wages. Self-employment. Investments. Rent. Benefits. Retirement. A row for support already received from a prior relationship. Each row has a payer, an amount, and which party it belongs to.

Alimony and spousal support, as a claim in this case, have a factor worksheet on Property. Child support does not. Child support has a place on Custody. This section holds the income and expense figures. Classification is later, on Property.

Below the income table is monthly expenses. Housing. Transportation. Food. Children. Insurance. Healthcare. Debt service. A row for alimony already owed under an existing order, listed as an expense.

Then assets. The house. A second property. Vehicles. Accounts. Retirement. A business interest. Personal property. Each row has a value, a loan balance, and a net.

Here the editions differ. In the spreadsheet, income totals, expense totals, and net on each asset update as the rows fill. In the print binder those boxes are written by hand. The same lists. Different arithmetic.

Debts have their own table. Mortgage. Home equity. Vehicle loan. Credit cards. Student loans. Tax. Whose name is on the account, the balance, and the minimum payment.

Under the numbers, a tracker for the paper behind them. Tax returns. Bank statements. Pay stubs. Titles. Benefits statements. Business records, if someone is self-employed. One column for the document, another for where it is kept.

Most states require a sworn financial statement. Deadlines and forms vary. Those answers are on State Rules and on Deadlines. This section is the contents of the statement, organized, before they are moved onto the court's own form.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

After Financial comes Property. It is titled Marital Inventory and Division. The work here is classification: marital, separate, or commingled.

The opening line is plain. Property rules vary sharply by state. Community-property states and equitable-distribution states handle this very differently. What appears here are common concepts. How a given state treats each item is confirmed from official sources, and recorded in State Rules.

At the top is a characterization primer. Three labels. Marital or community: acquired during the marriage, generally the pool a court divides, even if one name is on the title. Separate: owned before the marriage, inherited, or gifted to one spouse. Commingled: mixed. The primer is a set of names, not a ruling on anyone's house.

Then the inventory. Description. When acquired. How titled. Classification. Fair market value as one party's assertion, and a column for the other party's number when those values compete. Loan balances. A proposed division on each side.

Under that, a tracing worksheet. It is there for a row marked separate or commingled, when an asset has changed form. Inheritance into an account, account into a car. The worksheet is a place to record the chain. Gaps in the chain stay visible.

Next is a valuation reference. Real estate. Vehicles. Retirement statements. Pensions. A business. Personal property at resale value, not replacement cost. Each line names a common method. None of them is filled in as anyone's result.

Whichever system a state uses, the evidence listed here is the same. What the item is. When and how it was acquired. The source of the money. How it is titled. Its value as of a stated date.

Spousal support and retirement-division orders remain on this same tab, lower on the page. Classification, inventory, tracing, and value stop here. The support rows are below.

Nothing here divides a house. It holds what each item is, what it is worth, and how each side proposes to treat it, in one inventory, before those asks are written as relief.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

The factor worksheet is on Property, after the inventory.

The heading is Spousal / partner support factors, where applicable. Factor. What it means. Your position. Evidence. Priority. A working table, not a calculation.

The rows have names. Need and ability to pay. Length of the union. Standard of living during the union. Age and health. Contributions, financial and non-financial. Education, training, and earning capacity. Fault, where a state considers it. And a row for whatever else belongs in a given case.

They are common examples. They are not any one state's list. A note under the table is explicit. Not every state awards post-divorce support. Some call it alimony, some maintenance, some partner support.

Each row has room for a position, for the evidence that bears on it, and for a priority. The notebook does not pick a factor. It does not compute a number. Those fields are there so an ask can be written later, on Relief.

Under that, a retirement-division tracker. Plan name. Plan type. Whether a division order is needed. Status. Next step. Every retirement account in the case has a row.

Different kinds of accounts divide in different ways. Some employer plans use a special court order, often called a QDRO. Some accounts move with the custodian's own paperwork. Government and military plans have their own order types. What a given plan requires is recorded here as it is learned.

This is a tracker, not a draft. The technical wording of a division order is not produced on this page. The page holds the factors and the plan list so those asks have a place before they are written as relief.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

This is the section for child custody cases. The section where what a person already knows about their own family gets organized into something a court can follow.

It is built around 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 a given case.

A given state may enumerate those differently. The citation for the official list belongs on State Rules. These pages give common examples which can be adapted.

Each factor is a working page rather than a blank line. Room for a position, the facts that support it, the exhibits, the witnesses, and a priority.

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.

There is a map of where things stand against where each side wants them to be. Legal custody. Physical custody. Parenting time. And, on the same table, support and property. In a divorce those fights share a caption.

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 the family.

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.

Child support has a place on this section. Children, overnights, income from Financial, health insurance, child care. Every state has its own Child Support Guidelines, and most have an official calculator. There is a place for the figures that go into that calculation, and a place to write down the result after you use the official calculator.

Everything in it is knowledge a person already has about their own family. What the section adds is somewhere to put it, and a shape to keep it in, so that when one particular fact is needed, it can be found.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com

Every divorce case ends up with a pile of proof. Bank records. Titles. Messages. Photographs. A statement from work. Papers saved because something about them mattered.

There is usually plenty of evidence. The problem is that it is scattered and, with a hearing date coming soon, the one thing that is needed cannot be found.

The Proof sections of the Divorce Trial Notebook give every piece of it one home.

Exhibits go in two lists. Plaintiff exhibits are numbered. Defendant exhibits are lettered. Each one gets a description and a place to record where the original came from. The two lists stay separate, so they never blur together.

Witnesses get their own list. Who they are, how they are connected, who calls them, and what they know about.

Then there is the thing a shoebox cannot do. Each exhibit can point to the witness connected to it, and to the issue it relates to. So instead of a stack of paper, there is 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 those rules or apply them to anyone's case. It gives a place to write down what is found out, next to the exhibit it belongs to, so it is where it is needed.

There is a column for admission status too. As a case moves, some exhibits are accepted and some are not. One glance tells where each one stands.

The same stretch of the notebook tracks discovery. Interrogatories, document requests, admissions, subpoenas, depositions. What went out, what came in, what is still outstanding.

None of this decides a case. It is organization, not advice. Walking in with proof numbered, linked, and in one place is a different experience from carrying a box.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-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. Property has an inventory. There is a log, if there are children, of who had them when.

The last sections turn that into what a person works from in court. The notebook itself is not filed with the court, but it organizes the presentation that will be given.

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. Property. Alimony. A retirement-division order. Custody, if the case has it.

It is not only for the person who started the case. The section says so in its own opening lines. Both sides ask for relief. Plaintiff and Defendant.

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. Content is gathered here, then put on whatever form a 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, property, support. Then the relief being asked for.

The closing argument presents the request for relief 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. They give 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 the date is worked out and written in. Both editions point to the clerk to confirm it.

And at the end, a readiness pass. In the spreadsheet it is a live page called Checks, tests across the whole file, each reading OK or needs review, pointing at the column to fix. In the binder it is a readiness checklist walked through section by section. The same list gets looked at either way. Nothing in the binder is automatic.

That is what the last sections are for. A file that has been gone through, in an order that can be followed, before anyone walks into the courtroom.

The Divorce Trial Notebook. Ninety-nine dollars for the digital edition, sixty-nine for print. One time, either way. getsteadycase.com