Family Law Frequently Asked Questions

You may file a Petition for Divorce at the Civil/Family Department located in the Historical Courthouse. If you are an Attorney we suggest that you e-file your pleadings. You must become an attorney subscriber in order to start e-filing.

You may apply for a determination of indigent status and if approved the filing fees may be waved.  You may fill this application out in our Civil/Family Department at the time of filing.  There is an additional fee for this service.

The Clerk’s office is unable to give you an exact time frame of a Divorce. This differs for each individual case. You may review the Florida Statue Chapter 61 that governs the Family Law of Dissolution.

Once you file a Petition for Divorce, you will fill out a FORM A that will be sent to the Case Managers. They will review the case and contact you via-mail within 15 business days after filing.  For more information visit the 12th Judicial Circuit Court Self-Help Program.

The only way to contact the assigned case manager is by filling out a Form A, Form B, or Form C and submitting this form at the Civil/Family Department. The Clerk’s office will then forward the form to the Case Manager. You may obtain this form at our Civil/ Family Department or you may also download the form through:

http://www.jud12.flcourts.org/Programs/Pro-Se-Program

You must file your change of address in writing form. You may bring it in person to the Civil/Family department or submit by mail. The clerk is unable to change an address over the phone. The following is a supreme court approved family law form: http://flcourts.org/core/fileparse.php/533/urlt/915.pdf

The clerk's office will only have a copy of a transcript if it has been filed for record into your court file.  If it has not been filed and you know a Court Reporter was present of the hearing was digitally recorded you must do one of the following:

1) If a Court Reporter was present you must contact the attorney who hired the Court Reporter in order to obtain their contact information.

2) If the hearing was digitally recorder, you may contact the digital Court Reporters at 941.749.3600 ext. 7109.