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Info Series: Resources – California state court pleading paper

I’m in California Superior court quite several times a week for one thing or another. Because of that, I meet a lot of regular lay people (i.e. non-lawyers) at the courthouse who, upon seeing me in a suit, inevitably engage me in conversation during which they ask me a legal question. Unlike most lawyers, I don’t mind this and try to help them as best I can in the minute or so I’m in line with them. One of the things I see a great deal is that non-lawyer lay people do not have access to basic resources that people who are around the law a lot (e.g. lawyers like me) take for granted. There’s the legal research resources, of course, but the resource problem goes deeper than that. One of the things lay people lack is pleading paper, or the paper that has the line numbers on the left and the title page listing out the parties, the name of the court, etc. Pleading paper is really easy to make in Microsoft Word. Since most people have Word, I’ve made a Word document of blank pleading paper for use in California Superior Court. This document should be compatible with Word 2003 and later versions of Word. If you do use it, please modify it for your individual case (e.g. insert the county you are in, the name of your parties, etc). As always, because I don’t know the details of your particular situation, I don’t guarantee or promise the paper will be useful in your situation. Please exercise common sense and ask for help when you don’t understand...