I would like to hear any suggestions to improving the family, child support, divorce laws and how the family law system in Pennsylvania works in general. I'll start with mine. Child Support accountability. I believe how the money is spent should have to be accounted for and regularly reviewed by a Child Support Fiscal Review Department. I can't recall how many stories I've heard where child support money is spent on ciggarettes, alcohol, plastic surgery..... you get the point.
So lets hear it out there, what are your thoughts?
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Suggestions for Improving Family Law In Pennsylvania
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10 comments:
I vote no on the accountability of spending CS; I think it's too controlling. However, 50/50 custody with no exchange of money in a majority of cases sounds right to me. Forget court; all cases use Collaborative Law instead. A cap on lawyer fees in most cases; $2500 sounds good. This is just for starters. How about all CSE employees get fired, and pay 35% of their income for the next 18 years to an "attorney fund" for those that can't pay their fees, except in MA and IA; there they can pay for 23 years and send another $40,000 to their local college, or they can go to jail.
I don't think the accountability of CS is controlling as nobody is telling anybody how the money *should* be spent. However if the person paying CS wants to know how his or her support money is being spent, they should be able to find out.
I like the cap on lawyer fees but I think that would reduce the number of good lawyer focusing their practice on family law and focus on other areas of law.
How about APL? At an absolute minimum make it needs based and make the qualification to receive it equal to the qualification for spousal support i.e. cohabitation = no APL. This is one part of PA divorce law that is incredibly illogical.
As the defendant in a divorce case, I'm basically paying someone (my wife) to sue me. She left me for another guy, lives in a half million dollar house for free, and I wind up giving her every other paycheck for the priveledge. I've got to spend money I don't have to fight this - hearing after hearing where every benefit of every doubt goes to her advantage. She's got a college degree but decides to only work part time and the 'system' is OK with that. Indeed we've got kids but they are teenagers - they don't need a 'mommy' at home 24x7 anymore. As a male and the breadwinner this Godforsaken 'system' assumes you are some kind of deadbeat dirtbag and m! akes you suffer regardless of any circumstance. After 20 years of homeownership I'll be lucky to walk away with only $20k of debt. How is this even remotely 'equitable'? I did nothing wrong and wind up with my butt nailed to the wall.
Sorry for the rant but you asked... ;-)
Your story speaks volumes about weaknesses in the system. One should not be rewarded for deviant behavior.
1) Mandatory death sentence for any lawyer knowingly filing a document with false claims, ok 5 years in jail, and $100,000 penalty per false claim to be paid to the affected party by the attorney.
2) If two or more local family law attorney’s turn down a case because of the presiding judge the case should be allowed to move to a different judge, if 5 or more refuse, case should move to a new county.
3) If more than 3% of a judge’s annual case load has to be moved, a review of the judge should be conducted.
4) Custody evaluators should have to provide a log to all clients containing the date, and nature of any formal complaint filed against them regarding their practice.
Item #4 is an excellent idea. Does #2 happen very often? This would be interesting to look into. I wish it was easier to research judges decisions in family law cases to discover biases....
The answer is quite simple for improving the system. Let us just move into the 21st century, and admit that a child needs and desires two loving and caring parents to be a part of their lives.Here we are,men that are fighting and spending money that would be better spent in a college fund for our children just to maybe get a few more hours a month with them.This is the treatment we get from a system that is dominated by male judges. Why are we doing this to each other? I think what would help balance the system is to do away with outrageous child support payments. I believe that it is a large and possibly only factor in a majority of cases for who wants custody of the children. I also agree with #1. It would only have to happen a few times before they got the message or were more selective in their clients. you asked
Maybe some cases are like that, but funny if you still married wouldn't you be spending that money and maybe more on the child?
I am a mom and while child support for 1 kids is nice amount, once you start hitting 3, 4 or 5 you don't get enough more for each child.
To say that 5 kids don't even get double of what 1 child gets not right.
Also if the intent was for one of the parents to stay home and raise the kids, and the other decides to leave and divorce, the kids shouldn't pay the price, especially with 5 kids 1 guy. They got enough of their world turned upside down, let them have some sort of stability and let them have their activities, sports, etc without having to now skip them cause dad moved away 2 hours and never did help much anyway.
You have a great point. Your right the kids shouldn't be the ones who suffer. I agree the child support system is flawed, on both sides of the coin, for both the custodial parent and the non-custodial parent.
Thank your for sharing your thoughts.
Wow, would I like to see reform! I'll apologize for the rant now. Where I live (Chester County, PA) the system is sooo oriented to the mother of the child(ren) it isn't even funny!! We (my husband and I, they are his kids (2, 16 & 17) from a previous marriage) have been to court about 10 times in the past 7 years. She keeps getting increases because she "can't" work due to the fact that she has a small child at home. This child is now 7 (not my husbands). She has worked full time in the past (after the "baby" was born)and at a decent wage (17.00/hr if not more). So, my question is how is it right that she lives with her mother (and doesn't pay rent or household bills, ahe has told us this), with her new husband, her three kids, his kid, and we are stuck paying an extrodinary amount of child support, benefits and unreimbured medical (including braces) when the last time that we went to court her hourly income was based on 6.00/hr because she coldn't provide proof of income?? The worst part is that every time we go to court the child support payments and percentages go up!! Needless to say, she is working......for herself making a decent living, but because she works for herself she doesn't report it. Oh, and she is the one that gets to claim all of the deductions on her taxes when we are court ordered to pay 75% of the "support"?? Something really needs to be done about this.......if there are any petitions that I can sign please let me know.
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