How a Tennessee Divorce Works, Start to Finish

From The Mid-South Divorce Guide, chapters 7 through 8, by
William W. Jones IV, a Memphis family law attorney and Rule 31 Listed
Family Mediator licensed in Tennessee and Mississippi. This guide covers
Shelby, Tipton and Fayette Counties in Tennessee and DeSoto, Tate and
Tunica Counties in Mississippi.

Questions this page answers

• How long does a divorce take in Tennessee?
• What are the steps in a divorce?
• What is a pendente lite order?
• What is an uncontested divorce in Tennessee?

The Roadmap

The version everybody wants

Almost every person who sits down across from me describes some
version of this, usually in the first ten minutes. We are both adults.
We already agree. Can we not just sign the papers and be done.

Yes. This is what that looks like.

Four documents. The complaint that opens the case. The Marital
Dissolution Agreement, which is the contract dividing everything you own
and everything you owe. The Permanent Parenting Plan, if you have minor
children. And the Final Decree of Divorce, the order that actually ends
the marriage.

No discovery. No depositions. No motion day. No mediation, because
there is nothing left to mediate. You wait out the statutory period and
you are done. It is faster, it is dramatically cheaper, and it is better
for your children than anything else in this book.

Now here is the honest part, and I would rather you hear it from me
now than discover it in month four.

Very few people can actually do this out of the
gate. Not because they are unreasonable and not because they
picked the wrong lawyer. Because an MDA is not a handshake. It is a
binding contract that has to resolve every asset, every debt, the house,
the retirement accounts, the vehicles, the tax years, the health
insurance, and support, in enough detail that a stranger could enforce
it years from now. And a parenting plan has to specify a residential
schedule, holidays, decision-making authority, and a dispute resolution
process, in writing, before either of you knows how any of it will
feel.

Couples who genuinely agree on the shape of it still discover that
they never actually discussed the shape of it. They agreed to be
agreeable. That is not the same document.

So most of the people who walk in describing this route end up
somewhere in between. They agree on eighty percent, they fight about the
rest for a while, and then they settle and sign the same four documents
anyway, a few months and a few thousand dollars later than they
hoped.

Which is fine. That is a normal, successful divorce. But it means you
should understand the longer road too, because you may be on part of
it.

The version most people get

Here is the full shape of a Tennessee divorce. Your case will not
match this exactly, but it will rhyme.

The complaint gets filed. Your lawyer drafts it, you
review it, it goes to the clerk. Filing fee gets paid. The clock
starts.

Your spouse gets served. A process server or the
sheriff hands them the complaint and summons.
Or, in an agreed case, your spouse signs a waiver of service and you
skip this. The automatic injunction attaches.

Your spouse answers. Under the Tennessee Rules of
Civil Procedure they generally have thirty days to file an answer. They may also file
a counter-complaint,
which is their own complaint against you. That is normal and not an
escalation.

Temporary relief, if needed. If somebody needs
support, exclusive use of the house, or a temporary parenting schedule
while the case is pending, that gets filed as a motion and heard. See Chapter 8.

Discovery. Both sides exchange information. Written
questions, document requests, sometimes depositions. See Chapter 9. This is
usually the longest phase and the one where the bill grows.

The parenting seminar. If you have minor children,
Tennessee Code Annotated section 36-6-408 requires each parent to attend
a parent education seminar of at least four hours. It is educational,
not counseling, and the children do not attend. In Shelby County the
local rules give you sixty days from filing to get it done, and a court
can decline to set your case for trial until you have. Your certificate
gets filed. Get it out of the way early. Nobody has ever been glad they
waited.

Mediation. Tennessee courts order mediation in
contested divorces. See Chapter 10.

Settlement or trial. Most cases settle, at mediation or on the
courthouse steps. The ones that do not get tried.

The final decree. The judge signs, the clerk enters
it, and you are divorced as of the date of entry. Not the date of the
hearing. The date of entry.

Cleanup. Deeds get signed, retirement accounts get
divided by separate order, names get changed, beneficiaries get updated.
See Chapter 35, and
please do not skip that chapter.

How long

An agreed divorce with no children can be done not long after the
sixty day waiting period. An agreed divorce with children, after ninety
days.

A contested divorce in Shelby County commonly runs nine months to
eighteen months. A hard-fought custody case with experts can run
longer.

What makes it long is not the court. It is the number of disputed
issues and how the other side behaves. Two reasonable people with a
complicated estate finish faster than two angry people with a simple
one.

Temporary Orders

Divorces take months. Life does not pause. So Tennessee courts can
enter temporary orders that govern while the case is pending. Lawyers
call this pendente
lite, which is Latin for while the suit is pending, and which nobody
outside a courthouse has ever said out loud.

A temporary order can set who lives in the house, a temporary
parenting schedule, temporary child support, temporary spousal support,
who pays which bills, and who keeps which vehicle.

Two things to
understand about temporary orders

First, they matter more than they sound like they
should. A temporary parenting schedule that runs for a year
becomes the status quo, and courts are cautious about disrupting a
child’s stable, working arrangement. The schedule you agree to in month
two has a way of becoming the schedule you have in month fourteen. Do
not agree to something temporary that you would not accept permanently,
at least not without understanding that risk.

Second, they are not permanent and they are not a
prediction. A temporary support number is set fast on limited
information. It is not the judge telling you how the case comes out.

The Rule 14 affidavit

In Shelby County, financial disclosure in domestic cases runs through
Rule 14 of the local rules of the 30th Judicial District, and the income
and expense affidavit is the document that drives every support
conversation you are going to have. It is a sworn statement of what you
earn and what you spend.

The deadline is ten days. Both parties file a sworn
financial affidavit at least ten days before any hearing that touches
financial issues, unless the court waives it or the lawyers agree
otherwise. That is not a lot of runway once a hearing gets set, which is
why the gathering you did in Chapter 2 pays for itself
here. At trial your lawyer certifies to the court that the affidavits
were exchanged.

Take it seriously. Three reasons.

It is sworn. Getting caught inflating your expenses or hiding income
destroys your credibility for the whole case, and credibility is the
only currency you cannot buy back.

It is the document the judge actually reads. In a crowded motion docket, that
affidavit and the child support worksheet may be most of what the court
sees before ruling.

It is going to be compared against your bank statements. Line by
line, if the other side is any good. If your affidavit says you spend
four hundred a month on groceries and your statements say eleven
hundred, you are going to get asked about it.

Fill it out carefully, honestly, and completely. Worksheet 3 at the
back of this guide is built to feed it.

The current form and the operative rule live in the Local
Rules of Practice for the 30th Judicial District, and the clerk also
posts domestic forms on the Shelby County
forms page. Ask your lawyer for the current version and the current
filing deadline rather than relying on a copy you found somewhere,
because local rules do get amended and one you downloaded two years ago
may not be the one the court wants today.

Download the whole guide. All 35 chapters plus four blank client forms, complimentary, no email required. Download The Mid-South Divorce Guide (PDF)

Questions about your own situation? The Jones Law Firm, 5100 Poplar Ave, Suite 708, Memphis, TN 38137. Call (901) 761-5353.