Family Law | Asking the Court to Collect Child Support for You

If the father or mother of your children has been ordered by the court to pay you child support for the support of your children, there are certain things you need to know when asking the court for help collecting child support.

First, the court is very busy and will likely not pay attention to your request for help enforcing a child support order if you or your attorney does not file the correct legal paperwork.  In every case, the court will assign your case a case number.  This case number has important information which tells the court things like when the case was commenced, it what court it was commenced in, and what number it was filed under in the year or month when the case began.  Not all court numbers mean the same thing, but they often share common attributes as the ones listed above.  Therefore, you are your attorney must use the proper case number when filing any child support paper work.

Furthermore, when asking the court for help collecting your child support, you need to use the correct “caption”.  A caption often says something similar to John Doe v. Jane Doe.  Often, terms like Husband or Wife are listed after the names of the male and female in the caption.  This tells the court who filed the initial court paperwork when the case began and who is the husband or wife, or father or mother, of the children.  Obviously, people are not always married when they have children, so a name like Father or Mother may be used in the caption.

Next, there is often language listed at the top of the legal document which tells the court what you would like the court to do.  One example could be “Motion for Status Conference” or “Motion for Rule to Show Cause”.  These legal terms tell the court right away what you are asking it to do.  After the initial language, the court paperwork should introduce the parties that are listed in the caption, state who is asking the court to do something and against whom the motion or paperwork is directed.  The legal paperwork should then to go on to state the relevant history of the case and why you think you are entitled to the courts help. 

If the legal paperwork is prepared and filed correctly, the court will often set the matter for a hearing and order the other side (e.g. the child support payor) to come into court and explain why he or she hasn’t been paying child support.  The court can often do things like garnish wages and/or put the non-payor in jail.  In fact, there are many things a court can do to help you collect child support, but you need to make sure that you or you family law lawyer file the correct legal paperwork so that the court can help with your request.