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Certified Copies

Congratulations! Your petition has been granted. In order to complete the legal name and gender change process, you'll need to notify various agencies of your name change. To do that, you'll need certified copies of your court order.

Certified copies are copies of your court order with a stamp from the court clerk. Certified copies serve as proof of the court order. Most agencies will only accept certified copies, and not regular or notarized copies.

Each court has different procedures for how to stamp the order. In California, the stamp is usually only placed on the back of the last page of the order.

How to get certified copies

If you can't go to the courthouse for your certified copies for whatever reason, you can have a friend or trusted person pay for and pick up your copies for you. They'll just need your case number.
 

You can get certified copies by going to the court where the case was filed, requesting certified copies of your court order from the court clerk, and giving them your case number. Each copy will cost $40.50 without a fee waiver. You can get away with two certified copies, but it's best to get at least three just in case. Three copies will cost $121.50. If you have a fee waiver, you'll receive 3 certified copies for free.

Once you've paid the applicable fee and received the copies, you can start notifying government agencies of your name change. You can start with your Birth Certificate, since that takes the longest and there's a 30-day deadline, or Social Security, since you have to update that before most other documents.

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