Abby Elliott, best known for playing Natalie "Sugar" Berzatto on The Bear, filed for divorce from Bill Kennedy this July. Her case is playing out in California, not here in Washington, but the "who files first" question is the same one we get asked constantly. In a no-fault state, filing order shouldn't matter one bit. And yet here we are, writing an entire blog post about it, because apparently it does.
Does it matter who files first in a no-fault state? Technically no. Emotionally, absolutely.
A judge in Washington isn't handing out gold stars for who submitted their paperwork first. The state runs on no-fault rules, meaning nobody has to prove the other person ruined the marriage, and the court isn't in the business of assigning blame.
But "doesn't decide the outcome" and "doesn't matter at all" are two very different things. Filing first doesn't win you the case. It does, however, let you set the pace. And in a divorce, pace has a funny way of setting the mood for everything that follows.
What do you actually gain by filing first?
Nothing dramatic, but a few genuinely useful things do land in your corner:
- You write the opening scene. The initial petition is your framing of the issues, filed before your spouse gets a say in how the story starts.
- You usually pick the venue. Handy if you and your spouse live in different counties, or if someone's been eyeing a convenient out-of-town move.
- You can ask for temporary orders sooner. This covers parenting time, support, who gets the house while the case plays out, instead of waiting around for someone else to bring it up first.
None of these guarantee a better outcome. They just mean you're setting the agenda instead of reacting to someone else's. An experienced Washington family law attorney can walk you through what filing first actually looks like.
Why did Elliott also ask for attorney's fees?
Elliott's petition covered a lot of ground in a single document: joint legal and physical custody of the couple's two young children, spousal support, a request to terminate any support obligation to Kennedy, and a request that Kennedy cover her attorney's fees.
That last piece is the tell. Asking for fees isn't unusual on its own, but asking for it in the initial filing, alongside custody and support requests, isn't something people do on a whim. It's the kind of ask that shows up when someone has already talked through their financial position with counsel and decided what they're going to need before they need it.
What does filing first actually signal?
Here's the part that has less to do with statutes and more to do with human behavior: the spouse who files first is rarely the one who got blindsided. Being caught off guard tends to produce a scramble, not a well-organized petition with fee requests already built in.
Filing first, especially with everything in order, usually means someone spent a great deal of time thinking, planning, and consulting before a single document hit the court. That's not a legal advantage so much as a preparation advantage. And preparation tends to compound: the spouse who arrives organized is also the spouse whose attorney isn't playing catch-up on day one.
Compare that to the more familiar version of this story, the one where a spouse learns about the divorce from a process server. That version tends to produce a slower, more reactive response, simply because there was no runway to prepare one.
Related reading: Your spouse went to get milk and never came back — a family lawyer explains what a “cutthroat” is
What this means if you're considering divorce in Washington
You don't need to be a celebrity with a publicist-adjacent news cycle to benefit from the same approach. If divorce is on your horizon, even as a distant possibility, getting organized before you file, rather than after, puts you in the position Elliott was in: not rushing to catch up, but already several steps ahead.
Washington's no-fault standard means the court won't reward you for filing first. It just means you get to decide how the story starts, and starting from a place of preparation is worth more than most people expect.
If you're weighing your options or want to understand what filing first would look like in your situation, LaGrandeur & Williams can walk you through the preparation process. Just reach out to us.