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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Ind. Courts - Greene County residents may receive advice re child support payments from ILS

The Green County Daily World reports today:

Low-income parents struggling to keep up with child support payments will soon be able to get legal advice at the Greene County Courthouse.

Tom Frohman, a lawyer with Indiana Legal Services (ILS), will talk to parents about child support issues on the second Wednesday morning of each month, beginning June 13.

Frohman noted that when support becomes impossible to pay, many parents stop paying altogether. The Indiana Supreme Court recently recognized that “the existence of unsustainable support orders actually leads to greater failure of non-custodial parents to pay their support obligations.”

Frohman said, “Many people are not aware that, in order to change support, a petition must be filed in court. For example, if a parent becomes disabled, the child may get benefits on the parent's Social Security account. Even though the parent is entitled to a credit against the support obligation, it won't happen unless something is filed with the court.”

Frohman noted another common situation occurs when a child comes to live with the parent who is ordered to pay support. The support obligation continues to build unless the parent files a petition.

There are other reasons a person might have a support order that is more than he or she should be paying, such as loss of a job or emancipation of the child.

“Parents who have trouble collecting child support can get help from the child support prosecutor's office. Parents who have trouble paying child support, can talk to me,” said Frohman. * * * Frohman can only meet with people who are financially eligible for free legal services. * * *

Frohman said that helping parents get reasonable child support orders will help them pay the support as ordered.

“I'm not trying to keep parents from paying child support. I just want the orders to fairly reflect what the parents should pay.”

The Supreme Court decision referenced is the Feb. 22, 2007 opinion in Lambert v. Lambert. The ILB had an entry about it, titled "Establishing amount of post-incarceration child support," quoting from a Dan Carpenter column in the Indianapolis Star, on 4/1/07.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 17, 2007 10:47 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts