Divorce
With Children

Papers to File if You are a Defendant
in a Family Law Case

Important Notice: Doing your own court case without a lawyer is hard and not always a good idea. Before going ahead, we advise you to read Divorce and Parental Rights in Maine.

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If you have been served with a Divorce or Parental Rights complaint, and you wish to be heard by the court, you must fill out, file, and serve certain court forms. Here is a list of the forms you will need:

If you are the defendant, you need to file either an Entry of Appearance form or an Answer and Counterclaim within 20 days of being served with the court papers (Summons and Complaint). Entry of Appearance: This is the simplest way to respond.  You are just telling the court that you want to be notified of all court dates in your case. FM-020 Entry of Appearance FM-020 Entry of Appearance (interactive) Answer and Counterclaim: This is a longer form that you may want to file and serve.  If the plaintiff decides not to go through with the court case, you can still do that based on your own "counterclaim."   Divorce Answer and Counterclaim Divorce Answer and Counterclaim (interactive) Parental Rights Answer and Counterclaim Parental Rights Answer and Counterclaim (interactive) If you do not file one of these two papers, then the court will assume that you don't care about how the case comes out and will go ahead and decide all of the issues without notifying you or hearing your side.

Find more court forms.

Tech tips for using .pdf interactive forms Most computers have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which you can use to view, print or download the blank forms. Or you can fill out the interactive forms on-line, and print your completed form. Click on the form you want and it will open in your Reader. Get more information about downloading and using Adobe Acrobat Reader. For the more complex forms, like the supplemental child support worksheet, we recommend using the most recent version. Want to save your completed form? When you fill out our forms using Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can print them. But you won't be able to save them. To save completed forms, we recommend using Foxit Reader or CutePDF. Find out more about these free or inexpensive software programs.

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