Client recently hired me to emancipate his child and get his money back that the Probation Department took from his tax returns. We had to move quick because Probation wanted to lock him up for failing to pay. In the end, the child was emancipated, the money from the tax returns was given back to the client and Probation vacated his arrears so his balance was set at zero.
Child Emancipated, Probation Account Closed
Just a quick note on a recent victory, one of many during “emancipation season”. This one was great because it was quick and I won the case for under the small retainer that I charged the client. Not only did he win but he got money back from me!
Client gets increase in child support due to election win
My client is the mother of two great children. The father of the children just won an election that will result in a second job and a big increase in his salary. We filed a motion for an increase in child support and a host of other issues and we not only won, but we got a great result. The tricky part of this case was that we had to file the motion right away due to some emergent issues. However, the new position would not start for another month or so after the court date. Thus, the court may have kicked it and told us to come back in a month when the new position started. However, I worked it out with the other side to avoid a second court appearance and more expense to my client. She got the bump in child support and we don’t have to come back to court.
Waiting to file a motion could cost you
One of my new clients just came to me to file a motion to increase child support as the number has not been adjusted in over a decade. As a result, she has been missing out on thousands of dollars per year as the number is off by anywhere from 50% to 75%. In addition, she never sought any contribution for medical expenses which is even more money that she has left on the table. Lucky, we may be able to get some of that back. But since there is no retroactive child support increase, she will still lose a ton of money. Moral of the story: act now!
When is emancipation not emancipation?
I try to tell people to get an attorney from day one but I can’t reach everyone. My most recent example is one of my new clients. He went to court without an attorney for emancipation and was first denied for lack of service even though he showed the court that the other side was indeed served! He tried again and this time, he won. Child emancipated. Case over right? Not quite.
The Probation Department, for whatever reason, didn’t care about the Court’s order and refused to adjust his child support. Even worse, is that the child should have been emancipated back to a couple of months prior to the last order but the court made up an arbitrary date for emancipation. He hired me and we are fixing the problem. However, he may be stuck with the wrong emancipation date as he did not file a motion in time or an appeal. Thus, he left thousands of dollars on the table.
Firm kicks off emancipation season with several wins
We are entering what I call “emancipation season” because children will be graduating high school and college within the next few months. Thus, the calls for emancipation will be coming in fast and furious from now till about July. In the past several weeks, we have won several emancipation cases including one last week where I was able to emancipate two children at once for my client which totally ended his child support.
I was also able to work out a case a few weeks before that where I cut down my client’s arrears as a result of the emancipation by over $10,000. My associate has also had some nice wins too.
A court can only hear a case that is “ripe”
Got a call today from a guy that works right next to one of my offices. Small world. He wanted to file a motion for emancipation now for a child that is graduating in December. That is rarely a good idea since anything can happen between now and then. Thus, I advised him to call me back in October because his motion needs to be “ripe” or ready to be heard. However, that doesn’t mean that I file a motion after graduation. Instead, I try to time it so that it will be heard within a week or two after graduation.
Court rules that home-schooled child is emancipated
This was a very interesting case. My client’s daughter was being home-schooled for years. Even though the child should have been half way through college, she was barely half way through high school. There is no real case law on this issue so I had to get creative. The other side really fought hard but I turned their arguments against them. The case was so hard fought that both sides were arguing up to the day of court with new letters and documents being constantly sent to the court.
Thankfully, common sense prevailed and the child was deemed emancipated. This was a great win to kick off the new year.
A motion for child support modification is a gamble, but sometimes worth the risk
I met a client a few weeks ago that makes a nice income even though it is a 1/3 of what it use to be. It was a fairly routine motion so I charged him a rather minimal retainer as I didn’t see the case getting out of hand. If we won, he could save $40,000 over the next four years. Worst case scenario, he would be out $5,000 in legal fees and that is really worst case.
He wanted me to give him an exact prediction. Unfortunately, our judicial system does not allow that. Just because you should win, doesn’t mean you will. Luckily, the system works most of the time. You are rolling the dice with every motion you file for child support. I just had a case where we were asking for an increase and the court decreased it even though the other party wasn’t requesting one! Thankfully, I was able to withdraw that request and the child support remained the same.
So, when you speak to a New Jersey child support lawyer, understand that the best he or she may be able to tell you is how much of a risk you are taking. If you have a really good chance of saving up to $40,000 and you will most likely spend less than $5000 (probably even less than $2500) to roll the dice, that may be a great bet!
