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Waukegan

2835 Belvidere Road
Suite 202
Waukegan, IL 60085

(847) 520-8100

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Child Support

Jesse Barrientes: For example, someone may not want to – in terms of custody – they may not want the other person to have custody. Let's just take a situation where it might be a father who doesn't want the wife to have that physical possession, that residential custody. There could be a whole bunch of reasons for that. One reason sometimes, kind of superficial, but happens often enough, is that person doesn't want to pay child support, because generally the person who is the non-custodial parent will have to pay child support to the custodial parent, and that is as it should be—

David Siegel: Based on a percentage of his or her income?

Jesse Barrientes: Right, and there's a whole guideline set out in the statute.

David Siegel: Let's talk about that. 1 child will be 20 percent.

Jesse Barrientes: Right.

David Siegel: 2 children would be 28 percent, 3 children is 32 percent, 4 children is 40 percent.

Jesse Barrientes: Right.

David Siegel: 5 children is 45 percent, and 5 or more is 50 percent. It's a big financial burden the more children you have, and that's the net income, that's the take home pay.

Jesse Barrientes: Right.

David Siegel: So it's a huge chunk of change.

Jesse Barrientes: It sure is.

David Siegel: But it's for your children.

Jesse Barrientes: It's for your children. That's exactly right. You had those children, you're responsible to take care of them, and I want to tell all the people, all the fathers out there, all the parents out there, you have an obligation to take care of your children. You might not like your spouse. You might think that she's spending the money on something else. We don’t have accounting here in Waukegan, Illinois. That means that whatever the child support goes to her, it's for the roof over the child or children's head, it's for the food that goes in their stomach, it's for the heat that keeps them warm, it's for the clothes on their back, and other things, and everyone has a responsibility to take care of their children.

David Siegel: Right, and the payer would have the burden of showing that the recipient is not using those funds for the children. For example, if the children are in shabby clothes, if they're unclean, if they're not fed, if the household is not maintained, that would be the argument that the child support funds are not going to their proper purpose. Maybe the ex-wife is on a frolic. Maybe she's taking vacations. Maybe she's neglecting the children. That would be a case where someone would come back in and say to the court, "Look. Child support's not being done right with the child support in this case."

Jesse Barrientes: Well I think that would be a bigger case. I think if someone's not taking care of the children, that that might be an argument for switching, possibly switching custody.

David Siegel: She'd have to wait two years after a custodial order, unless it's endangerment of the children.

Jesse Barrientes: Right, exactly, two years.

David Siegel: Just having clothes that are dirty, and mac and cheese every other night is not endangerment.

Jesse Barrientes: Not just those couple of things, that's true enough, but people do consider those things, so people look at that. Sometimes the idea that they don't want the other person to have custody is because they're worried about that other person taking off with the children, or they have other issues where maybe the children aren't supervised properly, or maybe with the other parent they're around other people that are a negative influence on the children. What has to happen is that you have to identify and find out exactly what the underpinnings are, what's the lynch pin of the problem that somebody has.

Mediation

When mediation is best

Mediating child issues

Cost of mediation

Success of mediation

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Proceeding past mediation

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