Filing for divorce generally includes (1) filing the necessary paperwork with the appropriate state or county court; (2) paying the filing fee; and (3) having the paperwork properly served on (handed to) your spouse—known as service of process.

This paperwork generally consists of a complaint or petition that includes the names of the spouses, the grounds for the divorce (fault or no-fault), whether there are children involved in the marriage, and whether the spouse is seeking child custody, child support, or spousal support.

A spouse generally may file for divorce in the state and county in which the spouse resides—or in which the other spouse resides. In many states the spouse must have lived in the state or county for a specified period of time before filing for divorce. Laws regarding this residency requirement and where a lawsuit for divorce may be filed vary from state to state and with circumstances in which the spouses share minor children.

Laws regarding the requirements for filing for divorce are usually located in a state’s statutes—often in the family code or domestic relations code.

In Wisconsin, the process of filing for divorce involves submitting the necessary legal documents to the appropriate county court where at least one of the spouses resides. The initial paperwork typically includes a petition for divorce, which outlines the basic information about the marriage, the grounds for divorce (Wisconsin is a no-fault divorce state, meaning that the only ground for divorce is the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage), and details regarding children, custody, and financial support if applicable. The filing spouse must also pay a filing fee. After filing, the documents must be properly served to the other spouse, which is known as 'service of process.' To file for divorce in Wisconsin, at least one spouse must have been a resident of the state for a minimum of six months and a resident of the county where the divorce is filed for at least 30 days. The specific statutes governing divorce in Wisconsin can be found in the Wisconsin Statutes, particularly in the chapters related to family law.