Books: The process, and representing yourself
How a divorce actually works, and what to do if you are doing it without a lawyer. These are the books that answer procedural questions, and they are also the shelf that goes out of date fastest. Every entry says who it is not for, which is the useful part and the part nobody else prints.
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The process, and representing yourself: 8 books
Ordered by how well evidenced they are rather than by how good they are, because those are different questions and the second one depends on who you are.
Emily Doskow · Nolo · first published 2006, latest edition 2020 · 504 pages
Practicing family law attorney and mediator
A standard Nolo self-help guide to the nationwide divorce process, covering how to decide between contested and uncontested divorce, property and custody basics, and when to hire a lawyer versus go it alone. Includes worksheets and state-by-state pointers rather than deep procedural detail for any one state.
Read it if Someone who wants to understand the shape of the divorce process before deciding whether to self-represent or hire counsel.
Do not read it if Someone who needs state-specific court forms and procedure right now, or a high-asset or highly contested case needing more than a general overview.
Practitioner experience, not research Written by a practicing attorney/mediator in Nolo’s long-running legal self-help series; it is a legal-education guide, not a researched program, and Goodreads ratings are thin (under 100 across editions) and split across many separate print and Kindle editions dating from 2006 to 2024.
One caution. Confirm you have a current printing before relying on any dollar figures or tax specifics; editions verified range from 2006 to 2020 and family law and tax rules have moved since.
Goodreads 3.77 from 62 ratings. Checked 2026-08-31.
Mimi Lyster Zemmelman · NOLO · first published 2010 · 338 pages
Mimi Lyster Zemmelman is a divorce and family mediator.
A workbook that walks parents step by step through drafting a written parenting plan — custody schedules, holidays, decision-making authority, and how to handle changes later.
Read it if Parents in mediation or an otherwise cooperative split who want a structured way to draft their own plan.
Do not read it if Parents already in custody litigation or dealing with a co-parent who won’t honor agreements — a self-drafted plan doesn’t help when the real problem is enforcement.
Check the edition This is the 2010 edition. Custody terminology, standard scheduling templates, and what courts expect in a parenting plan have shifted in many states since; treat the sample language as a starting point, not current boilerplate.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
Janice Green · NOLO · first published 2010 · 432 pages
Janice Green is a Texas family-law attorney.
Addresses the financial and legal issues specific to divorcing later in life — dividing pensions and retirement accounts, Social Security spousal benefits, Medicare, and long-marriage support issues.
Read it if Someone divorcing after decades of marriage whose main issues are retirement assets and Social Security, not custody.
Do not read it if Anyone with minor children where custody is the central issue — that’s simply not this book’s subject.
Check the edition This is the 2010 edition. The 2019 tax law change eliminating the alimony deduction, and updates to retirement-account and Social Security rules since, mean the tax and benefits guidance here needs to be checked against current law before you act on it.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
John Ventura, Mary Reed · Wiley · first published 1998, latest edition 2005 · 354 pages
A For Dummies-style broad overview of divorce: legal process, splitting property, custody basics, and emotional coping, written to be approachable for someone who has never dealt with the legal system.
Read it if A total beginner who wants a plain-language first orientation to divorce before reading anything more detailed.
Do not read it if Anyone who needs current tax or financial guidance: the most recent verified edition is from 2005, well before the 2019 federal tax law change that eliminated the alimony deduction.
Check the edition The most recent edition we could confirm is from 2005; divorce-related tax law (alimony deductibility) and many state procedures have changed materially since.
One caution. Treat any tax or financial figures in this book as obsolete and verify separately.
Goodreads 3.92 from 59 ratings. Checked 2026-08-31.
Katherine Stoner · NOLO · first published 2006 · 402 pages
Katherine Stoner is a California family-law attorney and mediator.
A walkthrough of the two main out-of-court paths — mediation and collaborative divorce — covering how each process actually works, how to pick neutrals or collaborative attorneys, and how to structure the resulting agreement.
Read it if Someone who and their spouse are both willing to sit at a table and wants to understand mediation and collaborative divorce before choosing one.
Do not read it if Anyone facing an uncooperative spouse, hidden assets, or any element of coercive control — mediation assumes rough good faith on both sides, and this book doesn’t tell you how to spot when that assumption is false.
Check the edition This is the 2006 edition. Mediation practice, court-connected ADR programs, and state procedural rules referenced in it have moved on; check whether a newer edition exists before relying on procedural specifics.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
Stephen Elias, Susan Levinkind · Nolo.com · first published 1982 · 253 pages
Stephen Elias was a Nolo-affiliated attorney and author; Susan Levinkind is a law librarian.
Teaches lay readers how to use law libraries and legal databases to find statutes, case law, and secondary sources. It’s a research-skills manual, not a book of divorce answers.
Read it if A self-represented divorce litigant who actually needs to look up their own state’s statutes or case law.
Do not read it if Someone who just wants divorce answers rather than research skills — this teaches you how to fish, and this specific 1982-lineage edition predates almost all of today’s free online legal databases.
Check the edition Legal research today happens mostly through free online databases and search tools that didn’t exist when this Nolo classic was first written. Get the newest edition; the older printings’ library-navigation focus is largely obsolete.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
Paul Bergman · NOLO · first published 2010
Paul Bergman is a UCLA law professor.
A practical guide to taking or defending a deposition pro se — question technique, objections, and preparing a witness.
Read it if A self-represented litigant whose contested divorce has actually reached the deposition stage.
Do not read it if Most divorcing people — the large majority of divorces never reach deposition, so this is a narrow tool for the minority in contested litigation, not general reading.
Check the edition This is the 2010 edition; deposition procedure and rules vary by state and can change, so verify anything procedural here against your state’s current rules.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
Paul Bergman, Sara J. Berman-Barrett · NOLO · first published 1993 · 534 pages
Paul Bergman is a UCLA law professor; Sara J. Berman is an attorney and legal educator who has written extensively for Nolo.
A general civil-litigation manual for pro se litigants — pretrial procedure, evidence rules, motions, and courtroom trial mechanics. It is not written for divorce specifically; it is written for anyone representing themselves in any civil case.
Read it if Someone who has already decided to handle a hearing or trial without a lawyer and needs to understand courtroom procedure and evidence basics.
Do not read it if Someone hoping for divorce-specific guidance — custody, support formulas, and property division get no special treatment here, and going pro se in a contested custody trial without counsel is a real risk this book doesn’t weigh for you.
Check the edition Nolo has republished this title repeatedly since 1993; procedure and evidence rules vary by state and change over time, so the edition you actually get matters far more than usual — confirm you have a current one.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
Every title, author, publisher, year, page count and ISBN here was checked against a bibliographic database rather than typed from memory, and the candidates that could not be confirmed were dropped rather than guessed at. Ratings are shown only where we could see them at source, which is why several books have none — a blank is honest and an invented four-point-three is not. The judgments about what a book is worth are ours, they are opinions, and you are entitled to disagree with them. Tell us when we are wrong.
Compiled 31 August 2026. Bibliographic data from Open Library. Prices, editions and availability change constantly; the links go to the current listing.