Filing an uncontested divorce in the City of Los Angeles

The locator answers by zip code, not by the name Los Angeles

The court's Filing Court Locator has two fields, City / Community and Zip Code, and its instruction reads, in the court's words, enter a city/community, a zip code, or both and click search. For each of the other nine cities queried for these pages, a search by name returned rows. For Los Angeles it returned nothing: the results table came back with no rows when the city name was entered alone on October 18, 2026. A person in this city therefore searches by zip code, and the answer differs from one part of the city to another. The ten zip codes queried for this page, each with the courthouse the locator's Family Law column named:

• 90012: Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
• 90026: Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
• 90036: Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
• 90042: Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
• 90065: Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
• 90230: Stanley Mosk Courthouse in the Family Law column, while the Unlimited Civil column reads Santa Monica Courthouse or Beverly Hills Courthouse and the Restraining Orders column reads Santa Monica Courthouse.
• 90731, San Pedro: Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse, in Long Beach.
• 91331, Pacoima: Chatsworth Courthouse.
• 91401, Van Nuys: Van Nuys Courthouse East.
• 91601, North Hollywood: Van Nuys Courthouse East in the Family Law column, while the Unlimited Civil column reads Burbank Courthouse or Glendale Courthouse or Pasadena Courthouse or Alhambra Courthouse.

Two zip codes where the columns disagree

The locator's results table has separate columns for Unlimited Civil, Family Law and Restraining Orders, and for two of the ten Los Angeles zip codes they do not agree. For 90230 the Unlimited Civil column names Santa Monica or Beverly Hills while the Family Law column names Stanley Mosk. For 91601 in North Hollywood the Unlimited Civil column names four courthouses, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena and Alhambra, while the Family Law column names Van Nuys Courthouse East. A petition for dissolution is a Family Code action and follows the Family Law column. The other columns are printed here so that a reader who sees Santa Monica or Burbank on the screen knows which cell applies.

Beside the 90230 answer, the Family Law Departments Directory records that the Santa Monica Courthouse's three family law departments, D, E and F, are each labelled Dedicated Trial Court/Settlement and none is labelled General FL, and the court's Self-Help Center Locations document marks the Santa Monica center as offering no family law assistance. Beside the 91601 answer, the directory lists no family law department at the Burbank Courthouse, lists a single Glendale Courthouse department, and that one hears restraining orders alone, and the clerk's appointment scheduler lists Burbank as CIV CRM and Glendale as CIV CRM TR, with no FL code at either.

The locator prints its own cautions, and they matter in a city this large. The results page says that the courthouse shown will normally be the location where a case from the selected zip code and community would be assigned, unless Local Rule 2.0 specifies a different location, and that where a district boundary runs along a street, the boundary of the district is the centerline of that street. The search page warns that a mailing address may not be a proper indicator of true geographic location, and it notes that adjustments in caseload distributions in the San Fernando Valley and East Los Angeles areas, and in the North Central District, may place a case in a district other than the one displayed. For the assignment criteria themselves, the search page refers the reader to Chapter 2 of the Local Rules, which the next section takes up.

Only ten of the city's zip codes were queried for this page. If yours is not among them, enter it in the locator. The intake asks for your courthouse, with the answer the locator gave for your address, and before the petition is written the office checks that courthouse with you, because the caption on every document names it.

Local Rule 2.3: the Central District is open to every filer in the city

The court has twelve districts under Local Rule 2.2(a), each mapped in Appendix 2.A: Central, East, North, North Central, North Valley, Northeast, Northwest, South, South Central, Southeast, Southwest and West. The four courthouses the locator names for the city sit in four different districts: the directory places Stanley Mosk in the Central District, the Deukmejian Courthouse in the South District, Chatsworth in the North Valley District and Van Nuys Courthouse East in the Northwest District.

Rule 2.3(a)(1)(B) then gives every filer a choice the locator does not display. In the rule's words, an unlimited civil or Family Code action may be filed in the Central District or may be filed in a district other than the Central District, and the rule's list of optional filing districts has this line for family law: all matters under the Family Code, where one or more of the parties litigant reside. Read for this city, the rule means that a person in San Pedro may file at the Deukmejian Courthouse in Long Beach, as the locator says, or at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse; a person in Pacoima may file at Chatsworth or at Stanley Mosk; a person in Van Nuys or North Hollywood may file at Van Nuys Courthouse East or at Stanley Mosk. The district where either spouse lives also qualifies, so a person whose spouse lives in another district has that district as a third option. For the central zips the locator's answer and the rule's Central District option are the same courthouse, Stanley Mosk.

Rule 2.3(a)(1)(D) narrows the choice for nine zip codes in the Northwest District. Family law matters from 91301, 91302, 91303, 91304, 91306, 91307, 91326, 91361 and 91367 must be filed in Central or the North Valley District, in the rule's words, not at Van Nuys. The locator was not queried for those nine zip codes for this page; if yours is one of them, the rule itself names the Central District and the North Valley District as the two districts open to you.

Two more rules shape what the choice means once the petition is filed. Rule 2.11 says that Family Law Division courts are direct calendar courts, so the department your case is assigned to keeps it for all purposes, and rule 2.3(b)(4) lets the Family Law Supervising Judge transfer a family law case from one district to another, with a motion to transfer made in Department 2 in the Central District. The rule's own history line shows it was last amended effective July 1, 2018, and the edition of the Local Rules the court serves as its current rules is footed Effective January 1, 2022 on every page.

Two local forms carry your choice to the clerk. At any of the four courthouses, rule 2.3(a)(1)(E) asks for form LACIV 109, the Civil Case Cover Sheet Addendum and Statement of Location, which a self-represented filer signs when no attorney is of record, and rule 5.2 has the Family Law Case Cover Sheet, form FAM020, travel with the first paper in any family law action. The office prepares every document in your set, those two included, naming the courthouse you confirmed.

The Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street

The Stanley Mosk Courthouse is at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012, in the Central District. The court's courthouse page states that the courthouse is open from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and the Clerk's Office is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except court holidays. The telephone number on that page is (213) 830-0800. On parking the page says that parking is available for a fee at various parking lots surrounding the courthouse, and that there is limited metered street parking on Grand Avenue and Hill Street.

The page's General Directory lists the offices in the building by name, and the family law entries show how the work is divided: a Family Law Clerk's Office, a Family Law Filing Window, a Family Law Judgments office, a Defaults office, a Family Law Files of Current Cases office, a Family Law Self Help office, a Family Law Facilitator Office and a Children's Waiting Room. The directory's entries were not expanded for this page, so their room numbers and individual hours are not printed here.

By number, the departments at Stanley Mosk appear in the Family Law Departments Directory effective October 1, 2026, as amended October 7, 2026. Department 215 is the Family Law Master Calendar and Department 426 is Case Management; no other courthouse in the directory has either. The general family law departments are 243, 247, 312, 314 (General FL/Settlement), 315, 319, 411, 416, 419, 519, 543, 547, 604, 608, 634, 829, 830, 831, 832 and 835; the dedicated trial courts are 313, 601 and 736; restraining orders are heard in 317 and 723; and the AB 1058 child support departments are 245, 409, 417, 513 and 548. The court's General Orders page lists a General Order Re: Family Law Master Calendar Trial Courts, Central District, which it describes as the policy for assigning trial cases to family law courtrooms here.

The court's courthouse directory carries this notice: Stanley Mosk Courthouse Renumbering: Beginning May 4, 2026, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County will introduce a new department (courtroom) numbering system at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse. The directory edition cited on this page is effective October 1, 2026. A department number printed on an older paper, or remembered from an earlier case, may not match it.

Two particulars of the Central District. The Metropolitan Courthouse at 1945 South Hill Street is also in the Central District, but the directory lists only restraining order departments 65 and 68 and dedicated trial court 69 there, no general family law department, and the appointment scheduler lists it CIV CRM TR with no FL code, and the locator's Family Law column for the city's central zip codes names Stanley Mosk. And rule 5.24(b) sends child support cases brought by the Child Support Services Department to Stanley Mosk regardless of district, to be assigned to a Title IV-D courtroom. Cases with minor children are outside the flat fee.

San Pedro, Pacoima, Van Nuys and North Hollywood: the other three courthouses

Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse, 275 Magnolia Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90802, South District. The locator sends San Pedro, 90731, here. The court's courthouse page says the courthouse is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and the Clerk's Office from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except court holidays, gives the telephone as (562) 256-3100, and says public parking is available for a fee in the parking structure at 101 South Magnolia Avenue. Its General Directory lists a Family Law Clerk's Office, a Family Law Facilitator Office, Family Court Services for evaluation and for mediation, a Financial Evaluator and a Children's Waiting Room alongside its civil, criminal, small claims, traffic and unlawful detainer offices. The departments directory lists general family law departments S14, S15 and S16 and restraining order departments S10 and S11. The Self-Help Center is on the third floor in Room 3101, the scheduler lists the courthouse CIV CRM FL JVJUS SMCL TR, the Judicial Council's finder gives (562) 256-3100 for self-help, and the e-filing notification account is LB-FLNotification@lacourt.org.

Chatsworth Courthouse, 9425 Penfield Avenue, Chatsworth, CA 91311, North Valley District. The locator sends Pacoima, 91331, here, and rule 2.3(a)(1)(D) names the North Valley District as one of the two choices for the nine zip codes listed above. The courthouse page gives the same building and clerk's office hours as Long Beach, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the telephone (818) 407-2200, and on parking describes only the free parking for jurors in the public parking area at the end of the cul-de-sac on Penfield Avenue; it says nothing about parking for anyone else, so this page does not either. Its General Directory lists a Family Law Clerk's Office, a Family Law Facilitator Office, a Children's Waiting Room, a Domestic Violence office and a Civil Harassment and Domestic Violence Restraining Orders office with the civil, small claims and traffic offices. The departments directory lists five general family law departments, F40, F41, F48, F50 and F58, and prints the zip code as 9131, a misprint; rule 2.2(b) gives 91311. The Self-Help Center is on the third floor in Room 3700, the scheduler lists the courthouse CIV FL SMCL TR, the finder gives (818) 407-2200, and the e-filing account is CH-FLNotification@lacourt.org.

Van Nuys Courthouse East, 6230 Sylmar Avenue, Van Nuys, CA 91401, listed in the departments directory as Northwest District (34), East. The locator sends Van Nuys, 91401, and North Hollywood, 91601, here. The courthouse page gives the hours as 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for the building and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for the Clerk's Office, Monday through Friday except court holidays, the telephone (818) 901-4600, and the fullest parking note of the four: parking for a fee in the structure at 6170 Sylmar Avenue between Delano Street and Calvert Street, one block east of Van Nuys Boulevard, the structure closing at 7:00 p.m., the ticket booth at the top of the ramp on the fourth level, and metered parking on nearby streets. Its General Directory lists a Family Law Clerk's Office, a Family Law Facilitator Office, Family Court Services for evaluation and for mediation, a Children's Waiting Room, a Civil Clerk's Office for unlimited civil, a Small Claims Clerk's Office and an unlawful detainer office. The departments directory lists Department J as General FL/Settlement, Departments K, L and Y as general family law, and Departments D and Z as restraining orders, and the General Orders page lists a General Order Re: Family Law Trial Courts, Northwest District, the trial-assignment policy for this courthouse. The Self-Help Center is on the third floor in Room 350, the scheduler lists the courthouse CIV FL SMCL, the finder gives (818) 901-4600, and the e-filing account is VE-FLNotification@lacourt.org.

Whichever of the four is yours, the office's work is the same. Law Offices of Rozsa Gyene prepares and reviews every document in a limited scope engagement under California Rules of Court, rule 5.425, for a flat fee: $599 for a summary dissolution, $999 for a joint petition, $1,499 for an ordinary petition. The filing is yours to do, carrying written filing instructions for your courthouse, which the attorney reviews before releasing them to you. The office files nothing, serves nobody, appears at no hearing, provides no notary, and neither prepares nor records a deed; where a deed is needed, a title company or another attorney handles it. The office represents one spouse only. Your spouse is not a client, receives no advice from the office, and may consult an attorney of their own choosing.

Self-help at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse

The court's Self-Help Center Locations document, revised October 6, 2025, lists the Central center at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, 111 North Hill Street, fourth floor, Room 426F. Its hours of operation are Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., and Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The document describes the centers as assisting individuals who need to proceed on their own without an attorney, with in-person services for protective restraining orders, family law cases, eviction answers and CARE petitions. It also lists the Self-Help Call Center at (213) 830-0845, open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Judicial Council's Find Your Self-Help Center page lists the Stanley Mosk Courthouse with the telephone number (213) 830-0803 and points to the court's self-help website; it leaves the hours line blank, so the hours above come from the court's own document. The Judicial Council's page on court-based self-help services states the rule behind all of this: every superior court in California has free legal help available in family law and in small claims cases.

The court's self-help website describes its walk-in assistance in these words: assistance is available on a first come, first served basis and is subject to availability, and spaces fill up quickly. The same text says what the center does and does not do, in the court's words: "We can help you complete your court forms and educate you about court procedures. We do not provide legal advice." The Stanley Mosk courthouse page lists a Family Law Self Help office in its General Directory as well.

The Family Law Facilitator Office is a separate General Directory entry at Stanley Mosk. The court's Facilitator page says the office assists self-represented parties with child support, spousal support and health insurance issues, and that its staff does not give legal advice nor does it represent a party in a case or at a hearing. Local Rule 5.23 lists the Facilitator's duties: meeting with litigants to mediate issues of child support, spousal support and maintenance of health insurance; the rule also gives the Facilitator the work of drafting stipulations, advising the court, and writing orders when neither party has a lawyer. The Facilitator's office hours and locations are on a tab of the court's page that could not be read for this page, so none are printed.

The court publishes its own judgment forms packets for an uncontested divorce, with and without minor children; the one without minor children is titled Uncontested (Stipulated) Divorce Judgment Forms Packet without Minor Children, revised May 2025. Its first condition, in its words, is that you and your spouse or partner must agree on all issues of the case, and its completion sheet asks, what courthouse was your case filed, adding that this may be different than the courthouse where your trial was held. That question is the court's own way of saying what this page says: the caption follows the courthouse of filing. The self-help site also offers a three-part divorce workshop series, the third part for the spouse who filed and needs to complete a default judgment to finish the case.

Outside the flat fee, in Los Angeles as anywhere: a case with minor children, a contested case, a business, a pension that needs its own order, real property outside California, a legal separation or an annulment, and a spouse who cannot be found. The Los Angeles County Bar Association Lawyer Referral and Information Service, at 213-243-1525, can refer you to a family law attorney.

E-filing from a Los Angeles address

General Order 2022-GEN-009-00, In re Mandatory Electronic Filing for Family Law, dated April 13, 2022 and linked from the court's Family Law General Orders page, is the court's rule. It records that effective November 15, 2021 the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles mandated electronic filing of all documents filed in Family Law cases by litigants represented by attorneys, and section 3(a) says that self-represented litigants are exempt from mandatory electronic filing requirements. Under rule 5.425 the attorney prepares your documents and is not your attorney of record, so in the court's eyes you are self-represented, and e-filing is open to you without being required of you. The order's preamble notes that proposed judgments were removed from the list of exempt filings effective April 18, 2022, which concerns the parties who must e-file.

If you e-file, the order sets the terms. An e-filed document has to be a text-searchable PDF (section 6(a)), and section 6 makes you responsible for redaction, for instance initials for the names of minors and only the last four digits of a Social Security number. Section 7(a) provides that a document received electronically by the court between 12:00 a.m. and 11:59:59 p.m. is deemed effectively filed on that court day if accepted. Section 12 provides that fees and costs associated with electronic filing must be waived for a litigant who holds a fee waiver. Section 5(b) lists a family law notification account for each family law courthouse, through which, in the order's words, court generated documents will be served via email resource account to the email address registered with the EFSP; the Stanley Mosk Courthouse's account is SMC-FLNotification@lacourt.org, and the accounts for Long Beach, Chatsworth and Van Nuys East appear in the section above.

For a case filed at Stanley Mosk, the courthouse page gives the Clerk's Office hours as 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday except court holidays, and its General Directory lists a Family Law Filing Window; the window's own hours were not read. The court also takes clerk's office appointments online. Its scheduler, headed Schedule Appointment with Clerk's Office, lists each courthouse with appointment type codes, and the Stanley Mosk Courthouse's codes are AP CIV FL PRB SMCL; the court's Archives and Records office at 222 North Hill Street, Room 212, also lists FL. The scheduler does not define the code FL, so this page reports it as listed and no more.

On drop boxes the court publishes one statement that could be read, and it is narrow. Local Rule 5.3(a)(2)(B), on ex parte applications, says papers may be presented to the Clerk's Office of the district courthouse through the Clerk's Office's resource account, by fax filing, by drop-box filing or by physical delivery, with an advance appointment necessary for physical delivery. That rule is about ex parte papers; it says nothing about a petition or a judgment packet, and this page does not stretch it to them.

The judgment packet at Stanley Mosk

The rules for the packet are county-wide, written in Chapter 5 of the Local Rules, and they apply at Stanley Mosk exactly as at the other three courthouses. Local Rule 5.17 lists what a default or uncontested judgment packet contains, its first two items being the Declaration for Default or Uncontested Dissolution, then whichever of the Request for Default or the Appearance, Stipulation and Waiver form applies, and item (4) requires the original and three copies of the judgment, of which the court will retain the original and one copy. Item (6) requires two self-addressed, stamped envelopes, with the court's address as the return address. The rule lists the issues that require a hearing absent a written agreement, and it has two sentences about a spouse who signs the judgment without responding: filing fees will not be required from a defaulting party that has signed a judgment, and the signature of the defaulting party must be notarized. A notary is something your spouse arranges; none is provided by the office.

Rule 5.16(b) allows a stipulated judgment on reserved issues to be submitted to the court without appearance, and rule 5.3 names the place, the Clerk's Office of the district courthouse to which the case is assigned. For a case filed in the Central District that is the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, whose General Directory lists a Family Law Judgments office and a Defaults office; the court's own packet asks the same question when it asks what courthouse your case was filed in. Under Family Code section 2336 and California Rules of Court, rule 5.409, the court may enter the judgment on your written declaration with no hearing at all, and the court's Divorce Overview chart from June 2011, still linked from its self-help site, adds that in a small number of complex situations, a hearing is required even for a default divorce. Should one be set, the court's Family Law Division page states that remote video and audio courtroom appearance technology, LACourtConnect, is available in every family law department and for every hearing type; the office appears at no hearing.

The same chart states that the Preliminary and Final Declarations of Disclosure are not filed with the court but are served on the other spouse, which is what Family Code section 2104 requires. Your preliminary disclosure is served and the proof of its service is filed; the disclosure itself never reaches the filing window. The court's fees are set out item by item on the Los Angeles County page and are not repeated here; one point belongs on this page because a joint petition is a choice a couple in this city may make: Family Code section 2342.5(h) requires both first-paper fees on a joint petition unless both spouses hold fee waivers, $870 in all, which the Judicial Council's Statewide Civil Fee Schedule effective January 1, 2026 lists at item 99.

Within the flat fee are one revision round of the settlement agreement and the first correction of a judgment packet the court sends back; should a further round be needed, it is quoted before any work on it starts. The fee is earned stage by stage, and if the representation ends before the work is done, the office refunds the part not yet earned. Nothing filed at Stanley Mosk, or at any courthouse, shortens the waiting period: Family Code section 2339 fixes it at six months counted from service on your spouse or your spouse's appearance, section 2340 has the judgment state the date the marriage ends, and form FL-107-INFO places the first possible date at six months and a day. To file in Los Angeles County at all, Family Code section 2320 asks for six months of residence in California and three months in the county by one spouse before the petition is filed; where in the city you live decides the courthouse, never the residence requirement.

Rozsa Gyene, State Bar of California No. 208356, 3500 W. Olive Ave., Suite 300, Burbank, CA 91505.