More on New Hampshire

The rest of what we have written about New Hampshire. Every figure is quoted from New Hampshire’s own statute or its courts’ own published schedule, and carries the date we last checked it.

Free and low-cost divorce help in New Hampshire

There is no public defender for a divorce in New Hampshire, or anywhere else — the right to a free lawyer is a criminal-case right, and a divorce is a civil case. What exists instead is on this page, with the link to each one. Start with the fee waiver and the question of whether your spouse can be made to pay your legal fees, because those two are the ones people never think to ask about.

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The short version4 points · tap one to jump to it
  1. The five things to try, in this order
  2. Legal aid in New Hampshire — Legal aid organizations are funded to serve people under an income threshold, and family cases are one of the areas they most often take.
  3. Worth knowing about New Hampshire — You hire a lawyer for one piece — one hearing, one document, a review of an agreement before you sign it — and do the rest yourself.
  4. What we could not confirm for this state — Compiled 31 August 2026 from each organization’s own site, the state courts and the state bar.
In this subject 5

The five things to try, in this order

Ordered by how much they are worth relative to how hard they are, not alphabetically.

  1. Ask about the filing fee waiver. In New Hampshire it is called Motion to Waive Filing and Service Fees (with Financial Affidavit / statement of assets and liabilities). Clerk’s office provides the motion form and a Financial Affidavit; judge decides whether to allow proceeding without paying the filing fee. Exact form number not confirmed.
  2. Ask whether your spouse can be ordered to pay your lawyer. On proper application, the court may revise/modify orders, make new orders as necessary, and ‘may award costs as justice may require’ (subject to exceptions in RSA 458:19-aa). (N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. sec. 458:14 (Revision of Orders, Etc.))
  3. Check the statewide legal-aid portal. 603 Legal Aid lists the program that covers your county and what it takes.
  4. Use the court self-help service. New Hampshire Judicial Branch Self-Help Center – Getting Started. Guidance on starting/responding to a case, finding the right court/division, checklists, forms, and a note that a fee waiver (‘motion to waive filing fee’ plus a statement of assets and liabilities) is available for those who cannot afford the fee.
  5. Try the bar referral service. New Hampshire Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service (LRS) and LRS Modest Means Program. LRS charges a nonrefundable $25 administrative fee for a standard referral (603-229-0002); a separate Modest Means Program matches income-eligible people with attorneys who charge reduced fees for those who have some ability to pay but cannot afford standard rates.

Legal aid organizations are funded to serve people under an income threshold, and family cases are one of the areas they most often take. Being turned down by one is not the end of it — the threshold, the caseload and the priorities differ by program and by month.

OrganizationWho it coversNotes
603 Legal Aid (New Hampshire Legal Assistance / NH Pro Bono Referral)statewideFree civil legal advice/representation to low-income NH residents. Call 1 (800) 639-5290 or (603) 224-3333. Clients found eligible for Pro Bono services get automatic waiver of in-state court filing and service fees.

Worth knowing about New Hampshire

  • UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law (the state’s only law school) runs general legal clinics, but a dedicated family-law/divorce clinic could not be confirmed from the sources we checked, so none is listed.
  • The NH Judicial Branch also runs an Access to Justice Commission page listing legal aid programs including 603 Legal Aid and NHBA LRS-Modest Means.
The option almost nobody is told about

Limited scope representation. You hire a lawyer for one piece — one hearing, one document, a review of an agreement before you sign it — and do the rest yourself. It costs a fraction of full representation and it puts a lawyer in the two or three moments that actually change the outcome. How it works, and where it is permitted.

What we could not confirm for this state

Listed rather than filled in. Every one of these is something we went looking for and could not stand behind.

  • a single statewide fee-waiver form number, which in many states does not exist because each court uses its own
  • a law school family law clinic we could confirm is currently running

If you know one of these and we have it wrong or missing, tell us and we will check it and credit the correction.

Compiled 31 August 2026 from each organization’s own site, the state courts and the state bar. Legal aid funding and eligibility change, sometimes mid-year. Always check the link before relying on anything here. Corrections welcome.

Keep reading

Sources last checked2 September 2026
Page published2 September 2026
What this means. This is when the sources on this page were last read against their originals — statutes, court rules, official schedules — taken from the date this page was built from its sources. It is not the date the page was last edited. Adding a link or fixing a typo does not move it; re-reading the statute does. Law changes without notice, so treat anything time-sensitive as needing a fresh check. Where we get something wrong we publish it at thecusp.app/corrections with the date, what changed, and how long the error was live.