FAMILY COURT HEARING PREPARATION CHECKLIST CourtCraft Advocate — Free Family Court Resources ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ONE WEEK BEFORE THE HEARING Documents: [ ] Position statement filed with court and served on other party [ ] Court bundle filed (if required) [ ] All witness statements filed and served [ ] Any expert reports filed and served [ ] Confirm you have received the other party's documents Preparation: [ ] Read all documents in the bundle carefully [ ] Note the key issues the judge needs to decide [ ] Prepare questions for cross-examination (if applicable) [ ] Brief your McKenzie Friend (if you have one) [ ] Confirm your McKenzie Friend's attendance with the court Practical: [ ] Confirm the hearing date, time, and court location [ ] Check if the hearing is in person or remote (video/telephone) [ ] Arrange childcare if needed [ ] Arrange time off work ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE DAY BEFORE [ ] Re-read your position statement and key documents [ ] Prepare a list of the key points you want to make [ ] Prepare a list of the orders you are seeking [ ] Pack your documents (3 copies of everything) [ ] Lay out your court clothes [ ] Plan your journey — allow extra time [ ] Get a good night's sleep ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE MORNING OF THE HEARING Documents to bring: [ ] Court bundle (3 copies) [ ] Position statement (3 copies) [ ] Any additional documents [ ] Pen and notepad [ ] Photo ID [ ] Court order confirming the hearing Practical: [ ] Dress professionally (smart/business casual) [ ] Arrive at court at least 30 minutes early [ ] Allow time for security checks [ ] Switch phone to silent before entering the courtroom ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN COURT [ ] Address the judge as "Your Honour" (Circuit Judge) or "Sir/Madam" (District Judge) [ ] Stand when the judge enters and leaves [ ] Speak clearly and calmly [ ] Stick to the facts — avoid emotional language [ ] Focus on the children's welfare, not your grievances [ ] Take notes of what the judge says [ ] Ask for clarification if you do not understand something ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AFTER THE HEARING [ ] Obtain a copy of the court order [ ] Note any directions made and their deadlines [ ] Note the date of the next hearing [ ] Brief your McKenzie Friend on next steps [ ] File any documents ordered by the court on time ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Template provided by CourtCraft Advocate — Free Family Court Resources This template is for guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. Visit: https://courtcraftadvocatesco.uk