William R. Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse

Not sure why they have a phone number listed, nobody answers it. I’ve been on hold for an hour and a half. I imagine they will close any minute. Only other options to ensure you have filled out forms properly is to either go there and wait an hour to talk to someone at the counter, hire an attorney, or become an attorney.

The mediator I used in this court house was horrible. She ignored my request to be seen without my ex. She rolled her eyes at me several times. She applauded my ex, literally clapped for him, literally gave him two thumbs up, and a verbal «way to go!». She told me the courts do not take what the children want into consideration, at any age. Her reason? She said children are manipulative and will say bad things about a parent just to get an x-​box. She told me my written journal would not be admissible in court as evidence and that they consider it hearsay. All of which are lies. I felt overwhelmed and in no way treated fairly. I felt hopeless when going to court and I felt I had to agree to terms I did not feel comfortable with. A year later I learned that the mediator stepped over the legal line. I also learned that you do not have to accept a mediator in that court house and you can hire your own. I found a great mediator. She is wonderful. I highly recommend you do NOT use the mediators from this courthouse.

It looks like nobody knows what they are doing. I wish I could give minus million stars!

If you’ve ever been to this place you would know how much of a circus it actually is. First there is the issue of parking, you do have to pay to park, unless you park in the back and walk all the way to the front of the court house. I do not recommend doing this in high heels. You go in and walk through a metal detector, then you stand in line to tell the lady at the front of the courthouse what you are there for. Then you are issued a number and you are told to wait in a separate line to tell the people at the free self help desk what you are there for. They hand you a packet and you fill it out to the best of your ability. After that you are issued another number and you stand in a separate line to turn in your packet of paperwork.
Unless you are there to file for a restraining order, after you go through the paperwork process, you are stuck waiting for a mediation date until the papers from the court are mailed to you. There is a 21 day waiting period for mediations and you have to wait for the other party to be served. After that, you have to show up for a mediation and sit through three dreadful hours with the other party while you mostly present your case in front of a extremely judgmental and awful mediator who likes to stir up drama and will tell you things that are not even true about the law. I was in a mediation there once. The mediator gave me advice that was not legal and I found out later from the judge that it was not the right advice.
After this horrible process, you wait for a packet to be mailed to you with a recommendation from the mediator and a hearing date. For a long time I was led to believe that this was an actual trial date, and that this was the final ruling from the judge, but I have learned that you can request a trial later. After that you request a trial and get your paperwork This whole ordeal takes about 90 days and is the most nerve racking thing ever.
Its worth the extra money just to hire a lawyer if you can afford it. It speeds the process up and protects you from the evils of the family courthouse.

You have to pay to park which sucks but the staff is very helpful! I try to go in the mornings or midweek to avoid the lines and have never had an issue. The law facilitator’s office is beyond helpful and you receive promt responses from their online service. Courthouses aren’t going to superb but you can do SO much worse than this place.

Do whatever you can to avoid this place at all cost! Forget about the fact its a bleak and sad environment; there is something far more incidious about this place. Make no mistake this is a revenue generating county agency that is in cahoots with family law attorneys and both are looking to profit from your situation to end a marriage or resolve a family issue. If you are looking for help to navigate what is often the most difficult and contentious time of your life, you will not find it here. You will find unfriendly staff, impossible to navigate forms and procedures, high filing fees for every step, wait all day to file one form, and be charged to park there while you wait all day. In short they will add more conflict, complexity, grieff and cost to your situation!!! These people are not there to help you resolve your situation in a fair and amicable way. Why would they? there is no money in that. Although this is a CIVIL court you be treated like a criminal by bailiffs and judges. Unless you hire an attorney to represnt you for $ 250 per hour you will be disrepected by the judges and wait hours to be heard. The attorneys have quite the racquet going down there and you will rue the day you hired one or had to deal with your spouses. Make no mistake that these lawyers can manipulate this money making system against you in numerious very invasive and costly ways. The court is complacent in this as the more confict the more fees they tack on. In fact they are quick to issue any judgement that will potentially generate more income. Any garnished wages they get a percentage of, any violation of a judgement will levy stiff fines. if you dont comply they can extort you by leaning your house, your bank account, your wage, take away your proffesional licencing, your drivers licence and lastly throw you in jail. If you think this is the worst case secnerio, be warned they dont hesitate to misuse there authority. Restraining orders are issued at the drop of hat and you may find yourself homeless or unable to see your childern. Be prepared to be on the hook for $ 10k-​20K in attornys fees for a very just a basic divorce there.
Do yourself a favor and STAY away from this place! Go to couciling, go to a mediator, go to Nevada (where you can get a divorce in 6 weeks) but do anything to resolve your confict yourself. If you have an unreasonable former partner that wants to drag you into this cesspool anyway you are in for a horrible experience.

This government public service is substandard in many ways. The Sacramento Family Court system was effectively turned over to local attorneys in the early 1990’s.
A deal was made with judges to have attorneys operate the settlement conference program as a way to reduce the workload of full-​time judges. The attorneys agreed to act as temporary judges and run settlement conferences. In exchange, full-​time judges provide the judge pro tem attorneys with kickbacks, including «rubber-​stamped» court orders for clients. The arrangement is unethical if not illegal because it deprives the public of honest government services.
People without attorneys, who make up 70 percent of family court users, are relegated to second-​class status and treated as if they are not eligible for this government service:
Some people call the William Ridgeway Family Relations Courthouse a racketeering enterprise:
Consumers and court users need to understand what is going on behind the scenes or they will have problems in utilizing this government public service. Hope this helps.

It’s ok. Like other people have said, it’s a courthouse… so what do you expect? No 5 star service. It’s like a trip to the DMV. The lines are long, everything takes forever, and the people are never very nice. Sometimes, on occasion, you will get the «nice» clerk. And when I say nice, I mean, it’s early in the morning and they haven’t had to deal with listening to a room full of people dealing with family law matters and screaming children in the waiting room. Honestly people. Who brings a small child to a courthouse when you know it’s going to take hours? Ugh.
I’ve had to file divorce papers here before. Other than the wait, it wasn’t so bad. Just get there early and everything will be fine. Shouldn’t take more than 2 or 3 hours. I’ve also had to file probate papers here recently. These people are so anti giving you any information that it’s seriously stupid at times. Not only that, but they don’t even bother returning your phone calls. Not to mention that when you do want to call them, you have to sit through a 10 minute auto system to get to the department you want. THEN they’re only available between 8:30am and 12pm. Lame.
My advice for you, get a lawyer if you can afford it. (I couldn’t, but it would have made my life a lot easier.) Get their early. The lines for family law take at least 2 hours. Empty your purse before you get out of your car. The metal detectors and xray machines are no joke. BRING CASH AND COIN! Cash for the parking lot. Usually the probate office doesn’t take long, and I only spend about $ 2 for parking. Make sure you have all your forms IN TRIPLICATE with the originals on top. The copy machines are 25cents a copy and take stupid forever.
Thats my advice. Take what you will… and I’ll see you in line the next time around. ;)

What can I say? This is a courthouse. Not just a courthouse but the family law courthouse which means it is as classy as a Wal-​Mart, at least the dress code is the same.
Be prepared to pay to park (cash only) at a rate of $ 2 per hour. And be prepared to walk a good distance from the parking lot to the builiding.
One nice thing is there is a duck pond with a fountain!

I had to come here to file a restraining order, I printed up the forms online filled it out and went to turn it in. When I got there I was told I needed to get a number? WTF?!! Where they do that at? So I get my number and waited to get called up. I get to the clerk and submit my forms and am told I filled out the wromg forms, not really the same exact forms i just had the up to date version that the court will not except. so I was given the old form and was told I needed to fill out the form all over again really?!! Why would you put printable forms online and come to find out there no good? Maybe you should remove that from the site! So I had to start from scratch and get a whole new number that’s malarky! So 1 ½ later I get what I need and am told to come back at 3:45pm to get my answer. The clerks are very rude for no reason and act as though they don’t like there jobs! And you don’t like it get another. When you are working with the public have some kind of respect towards people, just saying. By the way I swear that they make you wait forever so you walk out paying like $ 6-​$ 8 in parking fees @ $ 2 an hr.

A haven for overprivileged SEIU members.
for example, a social worker was trying to make a meeting and parked in a no parking area. A contract guard told her she could not park there. Overprivileged self important social worker did her best to get the contract guard fired when he was only doing his goddamn job enforcing a rule of public safety.
second example:
2 office workers (union members) get into an argument. one worker felt so flustered she went home without giving ample notice and used her sick day. I believe sick days are to be used when you are sick not when a whim to go home occurs.

Its like going to dmv, can not stand this place, even if you get there when they open, your still going to wait 2 – 3 hours. Nothing but trailer trash and hoodlums seem to go here, there are the 5−10% of normal people that have deal with the others. Its very dirty, when you go there expect to pay atleast 3 hour of parking because there is no free parking. The system gets you every way they can.

The courthouse is clean and well kept, interior and exterior. What I don’t understand is why the staff in room 100 have to be so rude, unpleasant and demean individuals.
As this would not be acceptable or tolerated in any other industry.
I really have one word regarding the majority of the staff in room 100… B****‘s! They make something simple as missing dates, not written case numbers or insufficient copies of a document a big deal and not allowing to submit or file the docs. I had to get another F***ing number and wait another 2 hours just to submit the same doc because I was missing a hand written case number or had to make another copy. My advise is have 3 copies of whatever your submitting. Maybe if the staff would stop treating people like shit it would make a better experience.
Best days/​time to do business at the courthouse is Tuesday-​Thursday 10am or after 1pm. Avoid mondays at all costs
Thus far my experiences with the judges have been great.

As an attorney, I’ve seen my share of courthouses. As far as looks go, this one is better than most. It’s fairly new and, since it does family law and probate matters rather than criminal matters, it still looks nice inside and out. My major gripe with this place is the parking. Unless you have a handicapped placard, you have to park a quarter mile away down a huge hill. You have to hike across the parking lot, take an elevator or stairs up to the level of the courthouse, and then hike to the courthouse. This may seem nit-​picky, but try it in the pouring down rain and wind of many winter days in Sacto and you’ll see what I mean. And, just like all other courthouses in this crappy state, you can’t take anything more «potentially» dangerous than a sharp pencil into the building and the deputies who actually think they are making society safer by enforcing those stupid laws have no sense of humor. So, other than the slightly newer state of the building, it’s just like any other courthouse.

Grim example of how low our public institutions have sunk. This is like waiting at the train station in Calcutta. Interminable lines, groaning masses of confused and angry people, sullen unhelpful public servants, nonsensical rules and procedures. Nasty security guards.
And they charge for parking.

Who is actually a fan of a courthouse? The facility is well designed. The family law facilitator is helpful providing workshops to guide you thorough.
There is a computer lab where you can complete court related forms open Tuesday — Thursday 8:30 — 12:30.