An educator’s answer to a courtroom problem.

“I can’t be your lawyer for free,” I’d tell them. “But let me see if I can help you help yourself.”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had that conversation in courthouse hallways across California, after a self-represented litigant chased me down because they had just watched me argue a case.

Eventually, I realized something. My greatest impact wouldn’t come from representing one client at a time. It would come from teaching thousands of Californians how to prepare for family court with clarity, credibility, and confidence.

That’s why I created Family Court Ready — California. My goal is simple: to give self-represented litigants the practical knowledge, courtroom strategies, and evidence-based guidance I wish every person walking into family court had before their hearing.

Before I became a lawyer, I was a scientist and a teacher. Those careers taught me to follow the evidence, explain complicated subjects clearly, and help people make sense of overwhelming information.

My first family law experience came before I was admitted to the California Bar. At the San Diego Superior Court’s Family Law Facilitator’s Office, I helped self-represented litigants prepare declarations, pleadings, and motions involving divorce, custody, support, and parentage. At the San Diego Family Justice Center, I interviewed people seeking domestic violence restraining orders and helped them present their experiences in declarations the court could understand.

I went on to spend a decade practicing California family law, representing clients in courtrooms across the state and serving as a private family law mediator.

Throughout those years, I saw the same pattern repeatedly: the person who was organized, credible, and prepared was more likely to be heard. The person who was not prepared could struggle to present their case — even when the facts were on their side.

Most people entering California family court do not have an attorney. Family Court Ready — California brings me back to where my legal career began, but now with the experience gained from counsel table, the courtroom, and the mediator’s chair.

Here, I teach California family law preparation the way a scientist and teacher would: step by step, evidence-based, practical, and designed for people navigating one of the most stressful periods of their lives.

Subscribe to learn how to become more organized, informed, and Family Court Ready.

About Jennifer: Jennifer J. Moore is a California family law attorney (admitted 2016, State Bar No. 309881) and private mediator. Over the past decade she has represented clients in family courts across 15 California counties — high-asset dissolutions, custody and move-away disputes, support matters, and cases involving domestic violence — and has conducted multi-day family law trials with expert testimony. Before law, she spent nearly a decade as a science educator (M.Ed., UC San Diego) designing classroom and online curricula, and five years as a genomics research scientist (B.S. Genetics, UC Davis). Her first legal work was at the San Diego Superior Court Family Law Facilitator’s Office and the Family Justice Center, helping self-represented litigants draft the declarations and restraining-order requests this platform now teaches.

What this platform is: Free and low-cost education about how California family court works and how to prepare effectively — plus mediation services and limited-scope consultations for those who want professional help with part of their case.

What this platform is not: It is not legal advice, not a substitute for a lawyer who knows your case, and not affiliated with the California courts. Watching, reading, or downloading anything here does not make you a client.