These cases bother me!
So for some of you out there not in domestic relations land, a “IV-D” case is a federal, state, and local effort to collect child support from parents who are legally obligated to pay. Established in 1975 as Title IV-D (4-D) of the Social Security Act, the child support enforcement program functions in all 50 states and some foreign countries as well. Through the IV-D Program absent parents can be located, parentage can be established, and support orders can be enforced to ensure child support payments. Practically it’s free child support collection services for custodial parents.
But here’s the problem…all the IV-D attorneys (in IL usually the Attorney General or Cook County State’s Attorney) deal with is child support. They cannot deal with any child custody/visitation issues. So oftentimes a custodial parent has two attorneys the IV-D attorney and then say me as private counsel dealing with custody/visitation issues. Fine.
But then over at the lovely Daley Center there are so many courtrooms that a IV-D attorney is often in the courtroom only one day a week. So the case ends up getting bifurcated in the sense that there are court dates for child support issues and court dates for everything else. Yet, the non-custodial parent often only has one attorney. So non-custodial parent is at every court date and even when only child support issues are up in court he can bring up other issues when custodial parent’s non-IV-D attorney isn’t there.
I don’t like the system!
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I have also run into this problem many times. If you represent the custodial parent, we have her waive all rights under the IV-D program. Basically saying that she no longer wants administrative child support. Then when you file your parentage petition, there is no mix-up over which lawyer controls which part of the process…you are in control of custody and support and any other issues.
If you represented the non-custodial parent, perhaps an agreement could be worked out for the IV-D to be waived with a uniform order of support waiting in the wings. At least it might cut in 1/2 your court calls.
I must add it does seem like sometimes we are all acting out a play written by Kafka.
Hi there,
Everything dynamic and very positively!
Have a nice day
Interesting Jonathon, thanks for the advice. In the parentage courtrooms and some of the post-decree courtrooms there are state’s attorneys there everyday and I really don’t care. Just have one right now where the State is only there one day a week and the case ends up getting split and it has gotten awkward.
I’ve seen like 20 other blogs but I like the way you out it