What to Bring to a Legal Document Preparation Appointment

Always bring

Regardless of the matter, these come with you:

• Photo identification
• Any court paperwork you have already received — including the envelope it arrived in, because the postmark can matter
• Your case number, if a case is already open
• Any deadline or hearing date you have been given, in writing if possible
• Full legal names, spelled correctly, of everyone involved in the matter
• Any notice the court has sent rejecting or returning something

For family matters

Dissolution, custody and support matters need dates and figures more than they need documents:

• Date of marriage and date of separation
• Children's full legal names and dates of birth
• Every address each child has lived at for the past five years
• Two recent months of pay stubs and your most recent tax return, for support paperwork
• Any existing court order in the matter
• The parenting schedule you want to propose, written out — days, exchange times, holidays

For estate and property matters

These run on documents rather than dates:

• The current recorded deed for any property involved
• The assessor's parcel number
• Full legal names of everyone who should appear on title or in the document
• Any existing will or trust
• A general list of assets and roughly what they are worth
• A certified death certificate, where the matter follows a death

For civil and small claims matters

• The exact legal name and address of the person or business involved
• Invoices, receipts, estimates, photographs, texts or emails documenting the amount
• Any written demand you have already made
• The lease, contract or agreement, if there is one

What not to bring

You do not need to bring a theory of your case, a list of everything the other side has ever done, or a legal argument. A document preparer cannot use any of it, because building an argument is legal work.

Bring the facts, the dates and the paperwork. Bring the decision you have made about what you want to do. That is what the documents get built from.

If you are missing something

Come anyway. Most first consultations are about working out what the matter involves and what it will cost, and it is usually possible to identify exactly which missing piece is holding things up.

It is better to find out at a free consultation that you need the recorded deed than to find out three weeks later when the recorder rejects the filing.