Alaska Court System Self-Help

Your case is not finished until the judge signs the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law and the Decree and Judgment. These are the documents necessary to actually get you divorced, distribute the property and debt or establish a final custody order.

Sometimes the judge will create these documents. In most instances, however, the judge will ask one of the parties to submit them. If a lawyer is involved in the case, the judge will often assign this task to the lawyer.

Once the proposed documents have been submitted and served on you, you have 5 days to object. See Civil Rule 78(b). If it doesn't seem like the documents says what you thought was going to be the final decision of the court, and you think the document should be changed, you must file objections. You may use the CR 78 Objections form, SHC-1635 Word | PDF.

No. Once the judge signs the final paperwork - usually a decree, findings of fact and conclusions of law, possibly an order or a judgment - the decision is final and binding. The final documents outline the parties’ rights and responsibilities on the issues that they address.

You can only modify an order in very specific situations.

For custody, you need to show that there has been a change in circumstances. This means something has happened so that the old parenting plan is no longer in the child(ren)'s best interests. To learn more about modifying a custody order, see the modification section.

For child support, there needs to be:

• a 15% change in the amount of child support ordered (this means that when you calculate support based on the non-custodial parents current income now, it is 15% more or less than the current support order), or
• a change in the parenting plan from primary custody to shared custody or vise versa that affects the child support formula. You may find the FAQs on Child Support helpful to decide whether to file a motion to modify child support.

For property and debt division, it is very difficult to change the outcome of final property and debt decisions in a divorce or dissolution case. Once the court order divides and distributes property and debt to a specific person, that person may take action that is very hard or impossible to reverse. For example, if a spouse is awarded the house from the marriage, he may sell the house. At that point, it would be impossible to get the house back if the other spouse thinks something different should have happened with the house. Also, the court could order one spouse to receive a sum of money from the marriage. The receiving spouse may spend that money and not be able to get it back.

If you want to ask the court to change a property or debt division order, you can file:

• Request to Modify Order or Decree Concerning Spousal Maintenance or Property Allocation, DR-735

Please use the forms for the kind of case you have - each form is different and will be rejected by the court if you file the wrong one.

NOTE: You do not prepare these forms for a dissolution case; the judge will take care of it.

Custody Case (unmarried parents with children)

• Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, DR-460 Word Template
• Custody Judgment, DR-465 Word Template

Divorce with Children & Property (Long, i.e. property or debt to be divided by the court)

• Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law & Decree of Divorce, DR 800 & 805

Divorce with Children & Property (Short, i.e. no property or debt to be divided by the court)

• Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, SHC-520 Word | PDF
• Decree and Judgment, SHC-525 Word | PDF

Divorce with Property But No Children (Long, i.e. property or debt to be divided by the court)

• Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law & Decree of Divorce, DR 801& 806

Divorce with Property But No Children (Short, i.e. no property or debt to be divided by the court)

• Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, SHC-540 Word | PDF
• Decree and Judgment, SHC-545 Word | PDF