Free Tennessee Divorce Forms and Worksheets
From The Mid-South Divorce Guide, 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
- What documents do I need for a divorce?
- Where do I get Tennessee parenting plan forms?
- What is a Rule 14 affidavit?
- Where is the Tennessee child support calculator?
Four blank forms come with this guide. Download the packet, fill them
in, and bring them with you.
Form 1. Document Gathering Checklist. The most
useful of the four. Check the box when you have a copy, note where you
are keeping it, and keep it somewhere outside the house.
Form 2. Marital Balance Sheet. Everything you own
and everything you owe, including what you believe is separate property.
List all of it. Whether a thing is marital or separate is a legal
question and your attorney answers it, not you.
Form 3. Income and Expense Worksheet. This is the
information a Tennessee Rule 14 affidavit, or a Mississippi 8.05
statement, is going to ask you for. In Shelby County that affidavit is
due ten days before any hearing on financial issues, which is not much
time to assemble it from scratch. Use real numbers off real
statements.
Form 4. Parenting Plan Worksheet. Who has actually
been doing the parenting, the schedule you are asking for,
decision-making, exchanges, and support.
What these are, and what
they are not
None of the four forms calculates anything, and that is deliberate.
The numbers matter. The arithmetic is your attorney’s problem, and it
gets run on the actual forms.
They are also not court forms and they are not for
filing. They are organizing tools to get you moving. The
documents an attorney’s office prepares for court will look different,
will be formatted to the requirements of your particular county, and
will be the versions that matter. Do not file any of them.
If you want the real forms, they are public, and the links are in Resources. The blank
statewide Permanent Parenting Plan Order comes from the Administrative
Office of the Courts. The Shelby County income and expense affidavit
lives in the local rules for the 30th Judicial District.
How to use them
Fill them out before your first consultation with anybody, including
me.
Every blank you fill in is a question nobody has to ask you at an
hourly rate. Estimates are fine, and marking a number as a guess is
fine. What is not fine is leaving a line empty because you were not
sure, because a number somebody corrects beats a blank nobody
noticed.
And keep them somewhere your spouse cannot reach once you have filled
them in. Not the shared computer, not the family cloud account, not the
email you both know the password to. See Chapter 30.
These are the official sources. Go to them directly rather than to
whatever a search engine puts first, because a lot of what ranks well is
out of date or is trying to sell you something.
Tennessee child support calculator and worksheet.
The Department of Human Services publishes the official calculator. Run
your own numbers before your consult.
https://www.tn.gov/humanservices/for-families/child-support-services/child-support-guidelines/child-support-calculator-and-worksheet-1.html
Tennessee parenting plan forms. The Administrative
Office of the Courts publishes the blank statewide Permanent Parenting
Plan Order. Yours will be filled in by lawyers, but reading the blank
form shows you every decision that is coming.
https://tncourts.gov/programs/parenting-plan/forms
Shelby County local rules, 30th Judicial District.
The rules governing domestic relations practice here. Rule 14 is the
divorce rule: the financial affidavit, the parent seminar deadline, and
the trial memorandum.
https://www.shelbycountytn.gov/2471/Local-Rules-of-Practice-pdf
Shelby County court forms.
https://www.shelbycountytn.gov/342/Forms-Documents
The Jones Law Firm. 901-761-5353,
bill@midsouthdivorce.com https://midsouthdivorce.com
A note on the first two. Court forms and state calculators change. If
a link has moved by the time you read this, search the agency’s own site
rather than trusting a copy hosted somewhere else. Third party sites
host old versions of official forms for years.
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.