Wisconsin Father divorces in 1995. Father ordered to pay child support for his 2 year old.

Father enters plea agreement with prosecutor’s office over his failure to pay support for years. Agreement places Father on probation and defers prosecution.

Father doesn’t comply with agreement. Father convicted of felony failure to support his child.

Father in arrears by more than $25,000 by 2006. Father then sentenced to five years’ incarceration.

Plus a year’s “supervision” and two years’s probation after that. During which Father must work and continue paying child support arrearages.

Not paying timely certainly worked out well for Father…

Read more in this Baraboo [WI] News Republic article: Man gets 5 years for not paying child support.

In the same spirit as that of the unified family court as it is implemented in Florida and certain other states, New Hampshire is on the verge of passing a bill that is on the cusp of criminal and family law.

The proposed legislation would introduce as a consideration for the judge presiding over bail hearings whether a defendant is a single parent whose child or children would have to go into foster care if that parent were confined prior to trial.

A disproportionate number of single mothers are reportedly confined before trial because they have insufficient resources to gain their freedom with bail.

Apparently, this bill could save the state of New Hampshire a nice chunk of change. To illustrate, in New Hampshire, a year’s incarceration and a year’s foster care each cost about $30,000, yielding a savings to the government of at least $60,000 per single mother freed on bail.

If passed, the proposed legislation would also spare some children temporary upheaval which is, ultimately, for nothing.

Read more in this Laconia [NH] Citizen article: Bill aims to cut down on confinement for single parents.

Husband and Wife divorce in 1997.

Husband is ordered to pay child support of $512 per month for Daughter.

Now, a court has ordered Husband to pay about $5,000 more in monthly child support than was previously ordered.

The court has also ordered retroactive support of $160,000 to adjust support for prior years.

Husband characterizes these rulings as “absolutely laughable”.

The judges aren’t laughing though.

It turns out that Husband is an heir to the Dow Jones fortune, with trust funds valued at at least $4 million at the time of his divorce.

The court has found that Husband deliberately concealed his assets.

Husband maintains that he had no knowledge of his trust funds until after the divorce.

It is unclear whether Husband voluntarily came forward on his own to dislose his tremendous trust fund assets when he allegedly discovered them.

Read more in this WAOW TV 9 article: Dow Jones heir: Child support ruling ‘laughable’ and this Dubuque [IA] Telegraph Herald article: Wisconsin: Wealthy heir blasts back child support ruling.

Mother allegedly leaves her 6 year old and 2 year old home alone at night.

To go looking for her boyfriend at a bar.

Mother is arrested.

Mother pleads guilty to child endangerment.

Just two weeks later, Mother allegedly leaves 6 year old and 2 year old home alone at night again.

To go to a liquor store.

Mother is arrested again, for driving under the inflence, traffic offenses and child endangerment.

Mother’s mother (Grandmother) is reportedly seeking an order of protection and trying to have Mother’s two children removed from her custody.

Grandmother reports that Mother is an alcoholic.

Grandmother advises that she will be seeking custody of the older child, whose father is deceased. The younger child’s father will be picking her up.

Mother is already on probation.

Read more in this Northwest [IL] Herald article: Police: Mom left children alone again.

Minnesota is experimenting with a program to reduce litigation over child custody.

Early Case Management and Early Neutral Evaluation are the cornerstones of the pilot program.

In the program, parents begin working with professionals to amicably resolve child issues early in the case.

About 120 cases have participated in the program over three years.

One hundred of those cases were amicably resolved.

None of them have had to go back to court.

The program costs $600 to participate in.

Details were sketchy as to the types of professionals involved, the types of issues in dispute at the outset of those cases and the presence or absence of domestic violence and related behaviors in those cases.

Read more in this [Mankato, MN] Fox 12 TV news article: Program Makes Custody Cases Easier On Kids.

Husband and Wife have two children.

Wife has medical condition which prevents her from working.

Husband takes off on a fishing trip one day in April of 2006 … and appears to disappear from the face of the earth.

Wife seeks financial assistance in court.

Court repeatedly refuses to award Wife child support from Husband’s estate.

Court refuses to allow Wife Husband’s share of proceeds from sale of marital home.

Wife struggles along on food stamps and other public assistance to support her two teenaged sons without child support or a job.

Even though

1. a guardian ad litem for the boys and for Husband recommends that the Court allow support from Husband’s estate assets and
2. a family court made an award of child support prior to Husband’s disappearance.

Wife reportedly says her family is trying to live on $84 per month.

After the third anniversary of Husband’s disappearance, Wife may seek to have him officially declared dead – in the hope that her sons may collect social security benefits as a result.

Read more in this Albany [NY] Times Union article: Woman denied child support funds in missing man case.

Collaborative divorce has been enthusiastically embraced by many attorneys and other professionals serving people going through divorces.

Its primary virtues are touted as:

1. nonadversarial
2. less costly than litigation

Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on the particular case and parties.

One participant in the process in the Toronto Canada area felt moved to comment on a series of articles on collaborative divorce published in the local newspaper.

Her advice is “run as fast as you can in another direction”.

In her case, fees were reportedly estimated at $4,000 to $8,000. At the time of her letter, they exceed $15,000 “with no end in sight”.

Not inexpensive. More than she indicates she was led to believe. More than she bargained for.

But, of course, the only benchmark by which to judge the cost of collaborative divorce is what this woman’s legal fees would have been had she been a participant in a traditional, litigated divorce.

And still, that doesn’t address non-monetary, emotional costs or savings at all.

And her experience may not be typical. But it is worth considering.

Read more in this Toronto Star letter to the editor: Collaborative divorce not cheap.

This case is almost as hard to follow as a sleight of hand trick.

Daughter, an American citizen, is in Mexico, with nonrelatives. That’s been the case for four years of the five year old’s life.

Her Father and Mother are US citizens in the US, although not together.

It all started when Daughter’s Mother married a Mexican man, identified him on Daughter’s birth certificate as Daughter’s father and then moved to Mexico when her new husband was deported.

Father only saw Daughter one time in her life.

But DNA testing confirmed that Father, not Mother’s husband, is Daughter’s biological father.

Mother returned from Mexico to the US for a few days, leaving Daughter behind with her husband.

And there Daughter has stayed ever since.

Mother was arrested and incarcerated.

Father was also incarcerated.

Mother and Father both agreed to give custody of Daughter to Father’s wife.

A Florida court even approved the custody agreement.

And so Father’s wife has been trying ever since to bring Daughter home to Florida.

But she’s gotten nowhere. She can’t even verify that Daughter is alive.

It turns out, Daughter is with Mother’s husband’s sister – who is fighting to keep Daughter there and has identified her as a Mexican citizen.

A hearing was finally held in Mexico.

Mother’s husband’s sister testified that Mexico was all Daughter knows and that her parents are both criminals who shouldn’t have her.

But the Mexican judge has not ruled, either way.

Allegedly because the Court was awaiting papers from the US government.

And Daughter remains in Mexico with nonrelatives.

Read more in this Ft. Myers [FL] News-Press article: Lee couple fight to get little girl back home.

Retired NY police officer (Husband) is on trial for murder … of his former Wife. He allegedly killed her in 2007, while she was waiting to pick up their now 27 year old Daughter from a Park and Ride location.

The couple separated in 1999 and their divorce was finalized in 2003.

Wife was awarded child support, alimony, half the proceeds of sale of the marital home, her jewelry and most of Husband’s police pension. Husband was most recently employed as a manager at a fast foot restaurant in Florida.

Husband tried to negotiate a better settlement through Daughter, with whom he had had no other contact since 2000. He wrote in an unsolicited note that the judge “stole” from him and “I intend to get it back”.

Daughter had disowned Husband and, out of fear, had taken steps to keep information about herself from him. She found the note in her car.

Husband’s co-worker testified that he spoke more than once, over the course of a year, of wanting to kill his ex-Wife for taking his money.

At 63 years of age, Husband faces 25 years’ confinement to life. And his worries over his assets have likely been displaced by others.

Read more in this Staten Island Advance article: Daughter disowns cop who’s on trial for murder and Co-worker says cop joked about killing his ex-wife.

A Montana Indian Reservation is following the lead of reservations in Washington state, Wyoming and Oklahoma and will be implementing their own child support legal systems independent of nontribal legal systems.

All they are waiting for is final comments from the Indian population for federal funding to kick in and then the Tribe will exercise jurisdiction over child support matters involving tribe members.

The state and the tribe are working on interagency cooperation agreements.

The new system will allow the parties to a dispute to opt for resolution in the Traditional Circle, a traditional, tribal forum, rather than in a court.

The Montana tribe is the first to really use the Traditional Circle.

Read more in this Havre [MT] Daily News article: Rocky Boy rolling out child support programs.