Legal Question in Family Law in Kentucky

If you cannot afford an attorney, you should contact your local Legal Aid office to see if you qualify for pro bono representation. If they cannot help you, you should contact your local bar association to inquire about available pro bono or reduced-fee services.

While you can certainly proceed pro se, your chances are much better if you have an attorney to thoroughly evaluate your situation and pull together the evidence to best support your case.

If you absolutely must proceed pro se, which I certainly do not recommend, you would need to file a motion with the court. You will have to read your local Circuit Court/Family Court rules to make certain that your motion complies with those rules, as well as the new Kentucky Family Court rules that were just enacted in January (available on the www.kycourts.net website). Within the motion, in order to get your motion on the docket, you have to "notice" the motion to be heard at the court's motion hour, and provide a certificate of service with original to the court and a copy to your ex, with the required amount of notice (again, found in the local rules).

If you're going to be your own lawyer, I would suggest sitting in on a few motion hours before you notice your motion to be heard. If your county has a family court, then you will probably be able to watch cases similar to yours. You can also go to the clerk's office and ask to see those files and take a look at the motions filed in there to give you some idea about what your motion should contain.

While most judges are sympathetic to pro se litigants, and give them some leeway on procedural rules, I just can't emphasize enough how important it is for you to get an attorney. Especially if your ex has an attorney.