For everything that you file with the Court:

• Make sufficient copies of each original document, and 

• When you file any original document, obtain at least one date-stamped (ie, "conformed") copy of it for your records.

It is vital for you to have a record of everything that you have (and anybody else has) filed with the Court, and when and where it was filed.

If you file in Person in the Clerk's Office:

• The larger counties, such as King County, will simply provide near the filing window a table with hand Court stamps or a Court stamping machine where you may conform your own copies. 

• Other counties will provide Court stamps at each filing window where you can conform your own copies. 

• In some counties, the Clerk will conform your copies for you.

Stamp the first page of each copy in its upper-right hand corner with the Court stamp.

If you file in Person with the Clerk of a Courtroom:

When you send to an interested party a copy of a Notice of Hearing & Declaration of Mailing, attach to it a complete copy of the pertinent document, so that the interested party can see exactly what it is that you are asking of the Court or what the Court has ordered.

When you file with the Court the original of a Notice or Hearing & Declaration of Mailing, attach to it a copy of at least the first page of each document that you sent to each interested party, so that the Judge can see exactly what each interested party received.