People involved in a family law case will often need an “interim order” after the case has begun but before it has wrapped up. Interim orders are temporary orders that are only meant to last until another interim order is made, or until the case is resolved with a final order or a settlement. Interim orders can deal with urgent problems that can’t wait, such as stopping someone from disposing of property or stopping the children from being taken out of town, or they can deal with questions about how the family will function until the case is resolved, such as where the children will live, whether support should be paid and if so to whom and in what amount.

Rule 10-6 of the Supreme Court Family Rules describes how to apply for an interim order, called making an “interim application.” One party (the “applicant”) starts the process by preparing a Notice of Application using Form F31, found in Appendix A of the Rules. This form tells the judge the sort of order the applicant is looking for, explains why the judge should make that order, says what materials the applicant will be showing to the judge when making the application, and sets the day when the application will be heard.

Unless the application is made giving without notice to the other party (the “application respondent”) or the application is agreed to, both the Notice of Application and affidavit must be sent to the application respondent. Rule 6-2 says how these documents are sent to the other side, a process called “ordinary service.” Most of the time, ordinary service is accomplished by sending these materials by mail to the application respondent’s address for service, by fax to the application respondent’s fax number for service or by email to the application respondent’s email address for service.

You must set the date when the application will be heard in the Notice of Application. Except for urgent applications, the very soonest an application can be heard is eight business days (business days are days then court is open for business, and don’t include weekends and holidays) from the date the application materials are sent to the application respondent. You get to pick the day of the hearing unless the hearing will take two hours or longer, in which case you must schedule the hearing date with the court registry staff. Even if your application will take less than two hours, you should contact the court registry to find out whether the day you’ve picked is a day when interim applications in family law matters are heard. Some court registries only have family law chambers on certain days.

The application respondent has five business days after the day of ordinary service to file his or her Application Response and supporting affidavits in court and send them, by ordinary service, to the applicant. The Application Response says which of the orders sought in the application are agreed to and which are opposed, and why the court shouldn’t make the orders that are opposed.

The applicant is allowed to prepare one more affidavit to address any important points raised in the application respondent’s materials. This affidavit must be filed in court and sent to the application respondent by ordinary service before 4:00 p.m. one business day before the date set for the hearing of the application.

The applicant must prepare an Application Record for the hearing. An Application Record is a binder containing the following documents, separated by tabbed pages:

(Any kind of bound format will do, but it’s usually easiest to put these documents into an ordinary three-ring binder.) The Application Record must begin with an index that says what document is at each tab.