How to read these pages
A few things repeat on every page here. This explains them, because a marker you do not recognize is no use to you.
The short version: when we know something, we show you where it came from. When we do not know, we say so in those words — instead of leaving a gap you might read as an answer.
Every fee, deadline and rule on this site has a line underneath it naming where it came from. Usually that is a statute, a court’s own fee schedule, or a government page.
Under a table, that line sits beneath the whole table rather than under every row.
Those lines are not decoration. They are us showing our working, so you can go and check rather than take our word for it. If a number on this site has no line under it, treat that as a mistake and tell us.
A link that has quietly died is the same problem as a missing source line: you cannot go and check. Most sites never look. It took one afternoon.
This is the one worth knowing about.
Sometimes we cannot find an official answer. When that happens the page says so plainly, and tells you where the real answer lives — usually a phone call to a particular office.
Some pages have a whole section headed “What we could not confirm”, collecting everything on that subject we could not pin down.
We could have filled those gaps with a number that looked right. Almost every site does. But a wrong filing fee looks exactly like a right one — there is nothing on the page to warn you — and you would find out at the counter. We would rather hand you a phone number than a guess.
Sometimes lots of sources say the same thing, but no court or statute has actually settled it. When you see this phrase, it means:
This is probably right. Enough reliable places say it that we are willing to print it. But do not stand up in front of a judge relying on it without checking first.
A box at the top of a page is there because something about that subject catches people out badly, and we would rather interrupt you than let you find out the hard way.
A box inside a section is practical rather than urgent — the thing somebody who has already been through it would lean over and tell you.
A box about wording is there because the words matter. States do not all use the same terms, and using the wrong one to a clerk costs you time.
We do not tell you how your case will turn out. Most family-law decisions are made by trial judges, are never published, and bind nobody else. Somebody else’s result is not a prediction of yours, and any site that suggests otherwise is guessing.
We do not have a page for everything. Where we have not done the work, we would rather say so than write something thin to fill the space.
We publish it — which page, what was wrong, the date, and how long the mistake was live before we caught it. That is at thecusp.app/corrections.
We looked at ten of the larger consumer legal sites and could not find one that does this. It is the quickest way for you to judge whether we are worth trusting.
The Cusp is not a law firm and nothing here is legal advice. This page describes how our own pages are written. Where we get something wrong we publish it, with the date and how long it was live.
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