Is it OK to fill out divorce documents by hand in ink, or must they be typed?
It depends upon the court rules of the jurisdiction in which you would be filing your divorce documents are to be filed. In Utah, where I practice divorce and family law, there is no rule barring the filing of documents with the trial court that are almost completely hand-written, but I don’t think the rules committee realized what they’d done when they created a rule that does not require any part of documents to be filed with the court be typed EXCEPT for:
(e) Signature line. The name of the person signing must be typed or printed under that person’s signature. If a proposed document ready for signature by a court official is electronically filed, the order must not include the official’s signature line and must, at the end of the document, indicate that the signature appears at the top of the first page.
See Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 10(e).
So in Utah you can hand write your documents to be filed with the trial court (you can’t file handwritten appellate documents), but the name of the person signing the document must be typed under your signature.
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