Pro Se Child Support Collection After State Will Not Go Back to Court

My question involves child support in the State of: florida

I am tired of hearing that Florida DOR is supposed to work on behalf of the custodial parent. That has not been my experience. They left me hanging at the last enforcement hearing and nothing is being done by the court for NCP's failure to pay. I've been told that if I want anything done I will have to hire private attorney or go pro se.

I am not getting support and won't see any for a long time to come. The other parent owes over $20,000. I really don't have money for an attorney. Is this something I can do on my own?

What I want to do is file a request to produce documents to prove other parent can pay. Then file a motion for contempt.
After that then I guess I have to get a hearing date.

Am I on the right track?

http://www.flcourts.org/gen_public/family/self_help/

We don't know the reasons why the DOR is not actively pursuing the case. Perhaps the issue is that there's no money to be collected, no matter how many court orders they obtain.

You are in a position to assess your ability to file motions in court, argue your motions, have orders entered, and try to locate assets that can be reached to pay a judgment, whereas we are not in a position to assess your abilities. Thus, the question of whether you can advocate for yourself in collection proceedings, pro se, is something you will need to decide based upon your understanding of the legal system and your own capacity.

Some firms will collect child support on a contingency fee basis, and others might be willing to recover their fees from amounts collected. Shop around and see if you can find a firm that will work for you on acceptable terms, based upon their impression of how difficult it would be to actually recover money.

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Quoting Mr. Knowitall

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We don't know the reasons why the DOR is not actively pursuing the case. Perhaps the issue is that there's no money to be collected, no matter how many court orders they obtain.

You are in a position to assess your ability to file motions in court, argue your motions, have orders entered, and try to locate assets that can be reached to pay a judgment, whereas we are not in a position to assess your abilities. Thus, the question of whether you can advocate for yourself in collection proceedings, pro se, is something you will need to decide based upon your understanding of the legal system and your own capacity.

Some firms will collect child support on a contingency fee basis, and others might be willing to recover their fees from amounts collected. Shop around and see if you can find a firm that will work for you on acceptable terms, based upon their impression of how difficult it would be to actually recover money.

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But OP also needs to remember that once the debt is being serviced by one of those for-hire CS firms, it can become a debt that Dad can discharge in BK.

That's going to depend on their approach to collection and the laws of the state that ordered the support.

Thanks for the responses. I would never want to use one of those collection companies because the debt could then be discharged in bankruptcy.

Family self help makes it seem easy, you just file these forms. But I know there's a lot more to it.

I will try to find an attorney that may work on a contingency of what is collected, or negotiate a flat fee.

The CSE has given up because NCP claims to be disabled now and if filing for disability. I don't know if they will file papers with Social Security. They never explored other assets like bank accounts. Tax refunds were offset but returned to NCP, so there's probably money in the bank.

I guess they go for the low hanging fruit and give up if they have to actually have to put more effort into it.

Talking to an attorney tomorrow and I could use advice.

Do I explain what's been done and then hear what their firm will do?
Or, do I explain what's been done and then describe what services I think I need?

Spent the past week trying to find an attorney to help.
They say FL DOR is representing me, or they want thousands to file the same types of motions DOR just filed.

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Quoting tobysmom

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Spent the past week trying to find an attorney to help.
They say FL DOR is representing me, or they want thousands to file the same types of motions DOR just filed.

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Yes. Funny enough, attorneys are expensive. There is a premium to be paid if you want their legal knowledge and expertise and you want them to work faster than the DOR who has to deal with thousands upon thousands of people.

I will save you this amount of trouble. You're not going to find an attorney to to do this on contingency or even on a flat fee. There is no guarantee that support will EVER be collected and working on a flat fee is ridiculous seeing as if some cases are more time consuming then others.

In this case I wasn't expecting the attorney to work faster. I was hoping to find an attorney that would take on the actions that the FL DOR will not do. I did find attorneys that were willing to charge a fixed fee, but they were only going to duplicate the actions that FL DOR just did.