Some months ago my husband and I began the process of doing a “pro se” divorce in the state of Wisconsin.
In June I filled out the initial joint petition, got it printed and signed it. I mailed it to the dear soon-to-be ex for his signature and then he delivered it to the clerk of court office with the appropriate fees to be filed and to start the process.
He was given what he described as a “court date”. The date was 12/4/17, so as the date approached I made plans to travel back to Wisconsin to complete the case.
I tried to get more information about what else I might need and what would happen on the big day, but much to my frustration, I couldn’t find anything, not even a way to verify the “court date”.
There were no phone numbers I could find that even gave me a real person to ask, and no answer to the email I sent. I couldn’t find any way to get more info so I flew to Wisconsin blind.
At this point let me interject – we had a case number but had misplaced it.
First tip: CCAP is your friend. I forgot CCAP existed for a while but I could have looked it up on CCAP and it would likely have saved a lot problems. So my first tip is this:
You can get some information about your case through CCAP: CCAP – Wisconsin Circuit Court information.
Another interjection – the soon-to-be ex, (herein after shall be called “the ex”) is not good at paperwork. And when I say “not good”, that can be interpreted as “horrible, abysmal, unable, etc.”. I’ve always been the doer of paperwork, figure-outer of stuff, and all around personal assistant to him. I was (am) not always great at that task but I manage when I can find the resources.
Unfortunately, for this particular issue, I no longer live in Wisconsin. If I had been there, I’d have marched right down to the courthouse and found the information I needed and saved us both a great deal of trouble. But since I wasn’t there, I couldn’t do that.
On the morning of the “court date” we arrived at the courthouse a bit early and expecting a smooth road, but instead we found a roadblock. A big one!
The date we had was a dismissal date!!
Thinking it was a court date we were prepared to give the paperwork to the clerk, face the judge and have the divorce decree in hand, or at least on its way to us. Now we found ourselves in the position of potentially having our case dismissed. We had the forms Completed to the best of our ability, and packed away safely in a lime green plastic accordian folder in my backpack.
Needless to say, we were surprised and upset at the turn of events. We had no idea what to do.
The kind folks at the Milwaukee Justice Center saved our bacon. We explained our situation and they helped us fill out an extension for the court date and gave us further information.
You can find info about them at: Milwaukee Justice Center
While the ex took the extension form to the clerk of court to be accepted, I took the information given me and stepped into the law library, which is located within the Justice Center, to check once again that my paperwork was done correctly.
Apparently we got lucky.
When they gave us the form to extend the deadline, they told us that it was rare to be given an extension, but they encouraged us to try. We did and the extension was granted.
We also got exceptionally lucky in another way. The Justice Center has a staff of volunteers who help people complete their divorce cases (and some other types of cases as well). Usually they are booked out for several weeks, but they had a cancellation for the next morning at 9:30. We snapped that up quickly!
With no further options, and still not clear what should happen that day we left for the day, hopeful that the next day would be smoother.
[Spoiler Alert: it didn’t.]
Day 1 of the saga ended with us disappointed but ready to restart the next day.
Kate's Ramblings. 