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Courthouse Facilitator:
The Cowlitz County Clerk’s Office,
located at the Hall of Justice, 312 SW 1st Avenue, Second Floor,
Kelso, Washington, has a Courthouse
Facilitator
available by appointment Tuesday, Thursday and
Friday 9:00 a.m. until
4:00 p.m. Days and times are subject to change. The cost of
setting an appointment for is $20.00 due at the
time the appointment is set. We
do not accept personal checks. Appointments
may be
scheduled at the time of the initial case filing
but must be set before you may appear
before the court for actions such as but not limited to trial
settings, modification hearings, contempt issues and
presentation of final papers.
Appointments range anywhere from 20-30
minutes in length for a Dissolution case to 60-90 minutes for a
Third Party Custody case. The courthouse facilitator cannot give
legal advice but can give procedural and form advice to
self-represented parties in family law matters. Here is a document
that describes the duties a courthouse facilitator can perform
legally.
Facilitator job duties -
download in MS
Word or PDF
IF YOU MISS YOUR
APPOINTMENT ANOTHER APPOINTMENT FEE WILL BE REQUIRED TO RESCHEDULE
The clerk’s office has all state
mandated pattern forms available for purchase at 50 cents per page
and packets available for the following court actions:
Non-Parental Custody Actions ($86.50)
Child Support Modifications ($77.50)
Child Custody Modifications ($46)
Establishment of a Residential Schedule
and/or Child Support when parents were not married but have signed
a paternity affidavit ($71.50)
The Washington State
Courts web site at www.courts.wa.gov/forms
has state pattern forms that can be downloaded from the
Internet free of charge.
We have process
checklists for the following matters:
Non-parental custody
actions
- download in MS
Word or PDF
Divorce with children -
download in
MS
Word or
PDF
Divorce without children -
download in MS
Word or
PDF
Other resources
besides the Cowlitz County Clerk’s Office are:
If you are low income and need help with a non-criminal legal
problem, you may qualify for free legal services through CLEAR at
1-888-201-1014 or if
age 60 or over at 1-888-387-7111. The hotline is open Monday
through Friday 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. and Tuesday 3:30 p.m. –
6:15 p.m.
To get legal help, you must get a referral from CLEAR to go
through the Cowlitz County Legal Aid Program located at 1526
Commerce Avenue in Longview, WA, 98632.
The Cowlitz County Legal Aid Office sells 8 packets of
family law forms. They are:
Divorce with children, Legal Separation with
children, Parenting Plan #5,
Divorce without
children, Legal Separation
without children, Custody Modification,
Child Support
Modification and Child Relocation
Other helpful web
sites are the Northwest Justice Project at www.nwjustice.org and
www.washingtonlawhelp.org
and www.selfhelpsupport.org/
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