How Does the Filing Process Work for Divorce Mediation?

After your divorce mediation reaches a successful resolution, your financial agreement and parenting plan must be drafted into formal legal documents called a Marital Settlement Agreement and Custody Stipulation or Custody and Parenting Time Agreement. Once these documents are reviewed, approved, and signed, the next (and likely, final) step in the divorce process is the filing of your divorce documents with the Court for entry of your Divorce Decree or Judgment of Divorce.

In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the Courts allow couples seeking a divorce to file their divorce documents “pro se”, meaning on your own. While you certainly can hire an attorney to assist you with this process, you are not required to do so. At New Hope Divorce Mediation, you don’t have go through this process alone. We provide assistance with your pro se divorce filings and important information about the process.

Confused about the specifics? Curious about the differences between Pennsylvania and New Jersey filing processes? Want to know how New Hope Divorce Mediation goes the extra mile to assist you? Watch our latest video for detailed insights into the filing process and the comprehensive support we offer.

Transcript:

Josh Kershenbaum (0:00) – The Pennsylvania Divorce Filing Process

After all of the mediation sessions are complete, and you have reached your agreements, and we have written your agreement up into your actual marital settlement agreements, and you have signed the agreements – you have a binding legal contract with each other. It’s your binding legal financial agreement with each other, but you’re not divorced yet. In order to actually get divorced, a judge has to issue a Divorce Decree [or Judgment of Divorce]. In order to get the judge to issue a Divorce Decree, you have to file a lot of papers with the court. So the filing process is really about filling out a lot of forms and giving them to the court.

If you’re lucky enough to live in a county in Pennsylvania where they have e-filing, you’re uploading documents to the court. In some counties in Pennsylvania, you are mailing documents into the court. But one of the nice things is you don’t actually have to appear in court before a judge in Pennsylvania to file your divorce papers.

Now, every county in Pennsylvania, the courts have a process called a pro se filing process, which is just a fancy Latin way of saying for yourself, you don’t have to hire lawyers to file your papers, you don’t have to have anybody help you with it. You can do it yourself.

What we do at New Hope is we help you with that process. Now, as your mediators, we are not allowed to actually file your papers in court. We cannot enter our appearance in court for you, but we can help make sure that they all get filled out correctly and in the right order and filed on time. And that way you can be assured that the court will receive all of your documents in the right order, and there are many of them, and that they will have everything they need to issue your Divorce Decree. So the filing process itself is about making sure that all the papers get filled out correctly and given to the court in the right order, in the right time so that the court can issue your Decree.

Karen Salib (02:03) – The New Jersey Divorce Filing Process

Yeah, the filing process in New Jersey is fairly similar. There still are a number of documents that are organized into packets, if you will. There’s a number of different packets that need to be filed in a particular order. Some documents need to be signed, some need to be notarized. So it is, you have to be detail oriented to be able to be filling these out. And as Josh had mentioned, that’s something that we at New Hope Divorce Mediation, that’s something that we assist with in filing in helping you with your pro se filing.

So the distinction, I think the biggest distinction in New Jersey is the access that everyone has to electronic filing. So that’s something where in Pennsylvania, it does differ from county to county. Some offer electronic filing, some do not. In the state of New Jersey, it’s statewide. So there is a statewide electronic filing system that you can utilize as a pro se person who is moving forward through the court on your own, or that an attorney can utilize for you if you do hire an attorney. So at New Hope, that is something that we assist with.

But I think again, the biggest distinction to note for New Jersey is that they often are requiring at least one, if not both, of the mediation participants to appear for an administrative proceeding to be able to go before the court and say, this is my Marital Settlement Agreement. This is my Parenting Plan. I was an active participant in creating this document. I worked with a mediator, and this is a full and final agreement that we’d like you judge to approve. So at that point, the judge takes a look at the documents, probably asks you some questions about that, and then they will issue the Judgment of Divorce.

But it’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s nothing to get too worked up about. It is mainly an administrative proceeding where the judge just wants to make sure that the participants are both on board, and in some instances only one person is required to go to that proceeding. So that’s something where while we will not be with you at the proceeding, we don’t represent the mediation of participants, we can provide some information about what that might be like and we can walk you through what to expect from the process so that you feel comfortable and confident going into that proceeding.

Josh Kershenbaum (04:21) – The Pro Se Divorce Filing Process with New Hope

Every court has a process called a pro se divorce filing process. Pro se, just a fancy Latin word for do it yourself. And what that means is you don’t actually have to have a lawyer or anybody who is filing things for you. You can file everything yourselves.

Now, many people, even people who are very experienced, don’t feel comfortable doing this step themselves. They worked very hard in their mediation to reach an agreement, and they don’t want to mess it up by filing the papers the wrong way. So they want help from a professional who knows how to fill out the forms and knows how they’re supposed to be filed. And for mediation participants, they don’t necessarily want to now go hire a lawyer to help them do that because they’ve worked very hard to keep the lawyer involvement to a minimum.

What we do at New Hope is we include assisting you with that process as part of our comprehensive engagement. So when you pay your flat fee to us, it covers everything. It covers your mediation sessions, it covers writing up your marital settlement agreements and helping you with this last step, helping you make sure all the forms are filled out correctly and filed in the right order so you don’t have to worry that it isn’t going to get done correctly.

Now, not every mediator, not every mediation practice provides this service. Some mediators, once you’re done with your mediation sessions, perhaps they will write up your agreements. Perhaps they will write up a memorandum outlining your agreements, but some will not go the extra step of actually assisting you with preparing the documents that need to be filed in court. So when you’re asking around and you’re talking to different mediators, it’s very important to ask whether they do this or not, whether this is a service they provide.

We provide this as part of our comprehensive process. What we are hoping is that when you work with us, we will see you through the entire process. We will be with you from the very beginning, from your first mediation session all the way through to the end when the court finally issues your Divorce Decree so that when you are done with us, you are actually divorced.