Child Support Services

The LA Times reports that child support modifications, requested both by the Payee AND the Payor, are greatly on the rise and even beyond what Child Support Services can handle. Collections are actually up. Collections from unemployment checks are also up. Child Support Services has a duty to help either parent.  Click here for the LA Times article which goes into this at length.

"Cramdown" bill fails

Congress was considering a bill to allow bankruptcy Judges to do a mortgage modification to reduce your balance down to the value of the home. So if your home was now only worth $300,000, and your mortgage was $400,000, you could have asked a bankruptcy Judge to reduce the mortgage to $300,00. The bill was rejected: click here for the LA Times article.

Backup your family files!

Whether it is photos, video or records (like birth certificates), get them into computer format and back them up. Portable storage, like a flash drive or an external hard drive are very cheap. Whether you want to each have a copy or just to avoid catastrophe, back it up! Drives will fail at some point so keep a couple separate copies and in different locations (in case of fire etc.).

And you thought your divorce was bad...

Here are 10 divorce stories that boggle the mind:
Click here.

Pay your child support

Child support earns 10% interest when late and does not expire. I had one case in which a doctor did not pay his support for many years. I had the Sheriff auction off his Mercedes and take his bank account. The IRS sold off his home and the buyer asked if he could buy the judgment lien instead of paying it off. My client sold him the judgment balance (the child was an adult at this point) and the buyer hired me to collect it. We garnished his wages and collected it, again, over about 4 years.

Divorce Guide from California Courts Site

The California Courts site has a helpful selection of family law articles. Click here to view them.

Child Support

AllLaw has a nice child support calculator online: Click here to go to it.

Family Law Articles

Here is a great collection of articles about most family law issues:
Click here for the AllLaw.com list.

Civility is not optional - Yelling at Court Clerk results in Disbarment

An attorney that received a phone call from a Court clerk and was rude and yelled at her was disbarred. Abuse of Court personal is not just rude but an injury to a client's chances of receiving favorable treatment from the system.

Click here to read the ruling.

Computing at Court

Last December I purchased an Acer netbook. A netbook is basically a 2 pound laptop that is a little weak on processing power and lacks an internal DVD drive. They are great for browsing the web with your wireless access. Some models have, or will soon have, 3G or other cell phone type internet access built in.

Using a computer at Court is difficult in that it increases the sheer weight of what you have to carry around. I find that the netbook is a great tool to use as a reader and internet browser. Legal software is typically undemanding and can easily be installed if you get a netbook with a hard drive instead of the quieter and smaller solid state drives which work like flash drives except that they are faster.

Whether you want to type, display something, use your calendar, do child support calculation or just about any law office computing, the netbook has sufficient power for an attorney's needs and is far lighter than a laptop.

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