Take the tedium and monotony out of California Judicial Council and County Forms.

Essential Forms — Streamlined Legal Documentation for Attorneys

30 years & 50 billion judicial filings.

Essential Forms has been the most widely used California Judicial Council Forms software for the past 30 years, and has been used by California attorneys to file more than 50 billion judicial filings. Essential Forms provides a reliable software solution for lawyers to easily and efficiently create, print, and store California Judicial Council Forms and county forms. Your annual subscription gives you the most up-to-date versions of judicial and county forms, weeks before they are available from public sources, so that you never run the risk of having a filing rejected because you used an out-of-date court form. 


Essential Forms includes:

  • All California Judicial Council Forms
  • Shrink-to-fit fonts, custom form groups, custom fields, and a database that automatically fills in new forms with shared data
  • Electronic updates when California Judicial Council Forms are updated
  • Optional add-on Regional County Forms Packages, updated electronically throughout the year whenever there is a change to a form or a new form is added

Add Regional County Forms to your subscription:

Complete county-specific forms with the same ease and efficiency as you do the Judicial Council forms. Automatic updates ensure you never use an out-of-date county form. We know your practice isn’t isolated to one county. Get all the county forms your practice needs in one bundle:

  • All Counties Forms Package (all California counties listed below, plus Alpine, Lassen, Modoc, Mono, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Nevada, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, and Yuba Counties)
  • Bay Area Region County Forms Package (Alameda, Contra Costa, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma Counties)
  • Capital Region County Forms Package (Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Glenn, Placer, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Solano, Tuolumne, and Yolo Counties)
  • Central Region County Forms Package (Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Monterey, San Benito, Stanislaus, San Luis Obispo, and Tulare Counties)
  • SoCal Region County Forms Package (Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties)

eFiling with Essential Forms

Starting November 1, 2022, CEB will offer eFiling through an expanded partnership with Rapid Legal. You will still have the same great experience you rely on with Essential Forms to automate all your Judicial Council and County Forms. Starting November 1, 2022, when you’re ready to file your forms, you’ll download your forms and log into Rapid Legal to complete the eFiling process. With this new partnership, you will be able to easily eFile in 30 counties across California, with more to come.

And with your new Rapid Legal account, you’ll be able to take advantage of their full offering of litigation support services, including eFiling, eService, physical court filing, process serving, expert review, and more.


Video Tutorials



Essential Forms: Add Fields, Copy & Paste Forms, Quick Notes, Smart Text


Essential Forms: Searching Forms, Opening Multiple Forms