During my final divorce trial in open court on 4/13/2005, the judge ordered my ex to pay me $800+ "in a reasonable amount of time" for his share of medical bills for our children. This debt was for the time period of October 2003-April 2005. When the judge wrote his final decision letter on April 26, 2005 - he left this information out. When the final divorce order was entered with the court on September 29, 2005 - it was also left out.
I consulted my attorney but since the time frame was not specific she could not pursue collecting the money from my ex. I consulted my new divorce attorney in 2006 but he told me the same thing. In 2007 my attorney told me that since the debt was not in either of the 2 written orders filed with the court, that it was not a RTSC issue and not a Family/Divorce court issue. I was told to go through Small Claims Court.
I paid for the court transcript showing the judge's verbal order stated in court and filed to take my ex to SC court. It has taken 8 months since he was difficult to serve but we now have a court date July 31, 2008. The attorney he hired claims that the SoL has expired - since it is 2 years on a divorce issue.
My questions:
Is there a SoL on a verbal order of a judge in open court?
Is there a SoL since it was never put into writing?
If there is a SoL, then when did the date begin?
It is my understanding that a verbal order from a judge does not have a SoL...but maybe it is just my wishful thinking.
FYI - I live in a small town in Illinois and I do not have the assistance of an attorney. My ex has now been married 4 times and has 2 ex-gf's with a total of 5 kids and pays out over $2100 monthly in CS. The conflict of interest is disallowing me a local attorney since all of his ex's have attorneys. I do not have the $5000 to hire a new attorney out of town so basically I'm doing this alone. Any help you can give me is much appreciated.
I would be grateful if you could proivde me with links to data and/or websites so that I may be as informed and knowledgable in court as I possibly can.
Thank you very much.

