The incomes of the parties.  If you are planning to ask the court for a child support order or to modify a child support order you already have, be prepared to provide accurate information about your income and to make a good-faith estimate of the other party’s income if you don’t know what it is.  You will need to gather your pay stubs going back at least six months and tax returns for the past two years.  If you are self-employed, you will need to provide your business records, including your business tax returns.  If you have not filed tax returns, then you will need to provide your W-2 forms if you are an employee or your profit and loss statement if you are self-employed.  Both parties will also need to provide a Financial Declaration detailing income, living expenses, and debt expenses.

The number and ages of your children.  In King County, the amount of support per child will be lower the more children you have.  If your children are over age 11, their child support will be higher.  Once you have calculated your incomes, you will refer to the Washington State Child Support Schedule to figure out your monthly child support per child using both the number of children you have and their ages.  You will add these numbers to determine the total amount of child support each parent is responsible for.  Then you will divide this amount by the percentage of income each parent earns.

Whether a parent is paying day care or health insurance for the children.  If either parent is paying these expenses, then that parent is entitled to a credit against his or her share of the basic child support obligation.  The credit is not 100%.  It is the percent of this additional expense that the other parent should be paying.  There are other extraordinary expenses that may also need to be apportioned, such as long distance transportation or private school tuition, any of which would also be divided in the same proportion as the basic support obligation.  By now, you should have figured out that accurately calculating the parties’ incomes is critical to fairly calculating the child support responsibility.  From your incomes flows every other calculation you will make.

Whether either parent is responsible for children from other relationships.  The most important factor here is whether the other parent is actually paying for the support of these other children, or if these other children actually live in his or her household.  Having a child support order that is not being actually paid does not entitle that parent to a deviation in child support.  The second most important factor is that downward deviations are not automatic and are not based on a strict formula.  The court engages in a balancing analysis and attempts to allocate the parties’ resources as fairly as possible among all the children of blended families.  Sometimes this is not entirely possible because an older child support order that is actually being paid can severely limit the paying parent’s ability to support later children to the same extent.  The perfect solution would be for this parent to ask the court to modify or adjust the first child support order, but we rarely get perfect solutions.

Other reasons for deviating upward or downward.  Paragraph 3.7 of the Washington State Order of Child Support contains a checklist of twenty possible bases for ordering either an upward or a downward child support deviation, including financial responsibility for children from other relationships.  If you believe that any of the other nineteen reasons apply to you, then you will need to check the box next to that reason.  For any of these twenty bases for deviation, you must also complete the last section of that paragraph, “The factual basis for these reasons is as follows.”  Be sure to include the amount of the deviation that you are requesting in this factual basis.

If you have questions or concerns about this issue, feel free to contact us or call us at (877) 776-7310 for Attorney Support.

The five stages of most family law cases.   Every family law case moves through the court system on a fairly predictable path.  This is probably not obvious to you as an outsider, but bear in mind that King County Superior Court hears many thousands of family law cases every year and they process every case in essentially the same way.  Most family law cases go through five stages.  They are:  (1) filing the initial petition and response; (2) the temporary order process; (3) discovery; (4) the settlement conference; (5) the trial if settlement fails.  Buried within each of these broad stages are a myriad of small projects and details that you must tackle to cross the finish line and obtain your final orders.

Break your family law case down to manageable tasks.  Your family law case will be impossibly confusing and overwhelming unless you break it down to bite-size chunks and nibble through each until you’ve cleaned your plate.

The petition and response.  If you are the person filing the initial petition, focus on just this part of the process.  Get the forms you need, learn about how to complete the forms and file and serve them on the other party.  If you have been served with a petition, you will generally have 20 days to respond if you live in Washington or 60 days to respond if you live outside of Washington.  Don’t panic.  Focus on getting the response forms, filling them out and filing and serving them on the petitioner.

The temporary order process.  Divorce cases in King County are set for trial eleven months from the date the petition is filed.  Of course, if you agree on everything right away or file a joint petition, you can finish your case much sooner.  But if you do not have agreement or a joint petition, then your case could take many months to resolve.  The same applies to paternity and many other family law cases.  This may be too long for you to wait.  For example, if you have children, you will probably want a parenting plan or child support order right away.  Or you may have bills to pay or property you want to get from the other party.  This means you will want to ask the Family Law court for temporary orders.  You will need to learn how the family law motion process works.  Then you need to get the necessary forms to file your motion and fill them out.  These forms must be served on the other party.  You must deliver a set of working papers to the family law court.  If you are served with a motion for temporary orders, you must respond.  On the hearing date, you must argue your case to the Family Law Commissioner.  Once the orders are entered, you must obey them.

Discovery.  Discovery means investigating the facts of your case so that when you have your settlement conference or trial, you know your situation and can explain it to the mediator or judge.  Discovery can include sending Interrogatories and Requests for Production of Documents to the other party; sending subpoenas to third parties such as banks, employers, and pension plans; and deposing the other party or witnesses.  Discovery can also mean hiring experts to value assets such as real estate or pension plans or to investigate your family situation so that your parenting plan is in your children’s best interests.   You can also conduct informal discovery.  For example, you can go to your bank and get copies of your statements.  This is the information gathering phase of your family law project.  It is very important that you gather this information.  Otherwise you will not know whether your settlement or trial decision is fair.

Settlement conference.  Most litigants in King County Superior Court family law cases must participate in a settlement conference.  Most family law cases settle.  This is your last opportunity to control your own litigation, rather than having a stranger to your family tell you what your future will be.  The settlement conference starts with agreeing on who your settlement master or mediator will be.  Then each side sends to the mediator and to each other a settlement letter with supporting documents.  This letter is an offer and an explanation as to why the offer is fair.  Then the parties, attorneys and mediator meet to work out an agreement.  Each party and his or her attorney is in a separate room and the mediator does shuttle diplomacy between rooms, communicating offers back and forth and using his or her powers of persuasion to work out an agreement.  If settlement is reached, everyone signs a Court Rule 2A agreement. Then one side drafts the final orders and the other side presents them to the court for entry.

Trial.  If settlement fails, then you must take your case to trial.  The trial process includes pretrial preparation, the trial itself, the court’s ruling, and drafting and presentation of the final orders based on the court’s decision.

You can do this.  None of the steps described above is easy or simple.  You will be on a very steep learning curve every step of the way, and there are many details involved in completing this project that are not discussed above.  But your future, your financial security, and your children are worth the effort. 

If you have questions or concerns about this issue, feel free to contact us or call us at (877) 776-7310 for Attorney Support.

Communicate with the Opposing Attorney and his or her law office without compromising your case.  The Opposing Attorney is not your attorney.  He or she is the other party’s attorney and has an overriding duty of loyalty to that person, not to you. The same applies for the Opposing Attorney’s secretary, paralegal and other staff.  Whenever you communicate with Opposing Counsel, remember that he or she may use against you whatever you disclose in those communications.  The attorney has no obligation to maintain confidentiality of your communications and may in fact use them to your disadvantage.

The safest way to communicate with Opposing Counsel is in writing.  Draft your pleadings, letters and emails carefully and review them one last time before delivering them.

If you must communicate by phone or in person, stick to the issues at hand, and keep the conversation on a professional level.  This can be quite a challenge, especially after a family law hearing where one party has gotten an unfavorable ruling.  If that party is you, take a deep breath, step outside for a couple of minutes, go to the bathroom, or do whatever is necessary to calm down so that you can concentrate on working with the attorney to draft the orders in compliance with the court’s ruling.

Understand what the Opposing Attorney’s role is, and what it is not.  The Opposing Attorney is not your attorney.  He or she represents the interests of the other party to your case.  Often the other party’s interests are the opposite of your interests.  If you do not have representation, you must advocate for yourself, so be careful not to rely on the Opposing Attorney to do this for you.  This is especially important regarding drafting of documents.  If you are presented with a document to sign that was drafted by the Opposing Attorney, take your time reviewing it and if possible consult with an attorney before signing it.

Negotiate with the Opposing Attorney.  As an unrepresented person, you may, and in fact you should, contact the Opposing Attorney directly as necessary in your case.  For example, if he or she has scheduled a hearing for a date and time when you cannot be there, you can contact the Opposing Attorney’s office to ask for the hearing to be continued to a different date.  If it’s time to schedule a settlement conference, you will need to cooperate with Opposing Counsel to get this done.  Sometimes you will need to cooperate with Opposing Counsel to draft joint notices to the Court, such as the Confirmation of Issues or the Joint Statement of Evidence for trial.

Be courteous toward the Opposing Attorney and insist on courteous treatment in return.  Just as with any other person in your life, you should give to and receive from Opposing Counsel the normal courtesies.  You and the Opposing Attorney must work together to get your case done.  All of your contacts with the Opposing Attorney should result in progress, even if one or the other of you does not get the desired result every time.

If you have questions or concerns about this issue, feel free to contact us or call us at (877) 776-7310 for Attorney Support.