Divorce in San Francisco
Where your case is filed and who helps.

San Francisco has one family court location: the Unified Family Court at the Civic Center Courthouse, with its filing window in Room 402. Check the court's family law page for current clerk's office hours and drop-box rules before you go.

Represented parties must file dissolution cases electronically through a court-approved e-filing vendor; the court expanded mandatory e-filing to family law dissolution cases on January 4, 2021. Under California Rules of Court 2.253, self-represented parties are not required to e-file.

The ACCESS Center is the court's family law self-help center and facilitator office. It provides legal information, instructions and referrals at no charge, but it does not represent you, may also help the other side, and what you tell it is not confidential.

When parents disagree about custody or a timeshare plan, Family Court Services provides free, confidential mediation. Attending the orientation is mandatory before mediation can go ahead, and in most cases mediation is scheduled automatically for your first court date. The court may also order Family Court Services to give it specific information about the children, which the court calls a Tier 2 report.

Bilingual mediators can provide mediation in Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese as staff resources allow, and attorneys are invited to take part in mediation sessions.

California requires six months of residence in the state and three months in the county before a divorce is filed (Family Code §2320), and a divorce cannot become final sooner than six months after service or the respondent's appearance (Family Code §2339). Cases use the statewide Judicial Council forms alongside San Francisco local forms.