Clerk of Courts Assistance Policy

We are happy to help you if we can. However, we are only allowed to assist you in specific ways to help ensure that we are fair to everyone. Following is a list of what the court staff may and may not do for you:

We may:

• Explain and answer questions about how the court works.
• Provide you with the number of the lawyer referral service, legal services program, and other services.
• Give you general information about court rules, procedures, practices and terms.
• Provide court schedules and information on how to get a case scheduled.
• Provide you information from a case file as long as the case is not confidential.
• Provide you with court forms and instructions that are available, and check your forms for completeness.
• Give information about court deadlines, but we cannot compute deadlines for you.

We may not:

• Recommend whether you should file a case or what actions you should take.
• Tell you what words to use in your court papers or what to say in court.
• Research or interpret the law for you. We cannot apply the law to the facts of your case.
• Give you an opinion about what will happen if you bring your case to court.
• Let you talk to the judge outside of court or talk to the judge for you.
• Take sides in a case or provide information that would be unfair to the other side in your case.
• Change an order signed by a judge.

Court rules, procedures and practices can be very complex. Because we don't want to give you wrong information, we have been instructed not to answer questions if we do not know the correct answers. For additional information, please contact a lawyer or your local law library, or check the Wisconsin Court Self-Help Center web site at www.wicourts.gov.

Adopted from Judicial Council of California Form MC-800 By Wisconsin Director of State Courts Office of Court Operations 1/06