Child Support Tips: Choosing An Attorney
How Soon Should You Talk To An Attorney About Your Child Support Questions?
If you’d like to receive child support from the other parent, or you’d like to receive more child support from the other parent, you should consult with a good family law attorney at your earliest convenience.
A good attorney doesn’t cost you money, she either makes you money or she saves you money.
The problem I see far too often involves people who think they are entitled to more child support just because. Just because they’re not making enough to pay the bills. Just because their friend is getting more child support than they are. Just because their friends say so. Just because. ‘Just because’ may be a terrific emotional reason, but it’s not a legal justification for child support.
A good family law attorney will advise you as to the amount of child support you’re entitled to, and whether it would be wise to go to court or make do with what you’re receiving.
You may have noticed I insert ‘good’ before family law attorney. That’s because a lousy family law attorney, or a great attorney who knows little about family law, can actually cost you money.
STORY: A number of years ago I was sitting in Department 20 of the Solano County Superior Court in Vallejo, waiting for my case to be called. I was listening to a matter which involved a mother who had, with the help of an non-family law attorney, filed a motion asking for more child support. It had been a number of years since the original child support order and the mother assumed that with the passage of time, she was certainly entitled to more child support.
This mother assumed that since she had received significant pay increases since the prior order that the father had as well… he hadn’t.
In addition, both the mother and her attorney failed to take into consideration the fact that the child, now a teenager, was spending a lot more time with the father than he had been doing at the time of the prior order.
When Commissioner Haet calculated the support, the mother (and her attorney) were shocked to learn that not only was the mother not going to more child support, but her child support payment was actually going to decrease by several hundred dollars.
The commissioner asked the attorney if he had calculated the child support prior to the hearing. He had not. Had the attorney done so, he probably would have tried his best to advise his client to drop her motion.
Despite the fact that his client lost she asked the court to order the father, who was representing himself, to pay her attorney fees. The court declined to do so.
The court hearing was an all-around disaster for this mother, due to the fact that she did not retain a ‘good’ family law attorney. Good family law attorneys do not assume anything, but instead base their opinion on facts.
You may not like what a good family law attorney has to tell you, but I guarantee it will be better that you hear it from a good family law in the privacy of their office, as opposed to hearing it from a judge in front of a courtroom full of people, including the other parent.
By: Robert Busch
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