My employer WILL NOT take out court ordered support..

[Hopin4daBest]

Judge ordered me to pay 28% CS for two kids in IL. Plus another 22% in temp spousal support.
I submitted the order to my HR, and they sent me a letter stating that those deductions are deemed more than my "disposable income."
So it seems they are only deducting the 28% from my checks now, and not the 22% in spousal support.
Went back to my local HR spokeswoman, who chimed that it seems company headquarters is "doing me a favor.."
Fine. So I call my lawyer and he says on the contrary that I will end up in arrears because the state of IL will see it as me dodging the payments.

So wtf am I supposed to do?
This 22% I'm "saving" is actually money I need to survive, such as food, gas, clothes for me and S8, S1...So I was shocked when my lawyer agreed to this to begin with.

[defaultuser]

Look at the federal laws on wage garnishment. They can't take over a certain percentage and it looks like they are wanting to do it.

Your employer can't comply, legally. It doesn't mean you don't owe the money, it just means your employer isn't going to take it out of your check. You can still probably pay the state disbursement people.

If your lawyer agreed to something you didn't want him do, you have a serious problem with attorney management. You should either make things very clear to him, like don't do anything without my permission, or fire him and get a decent attorney.

[Hopin4daBest]

Look at the federal laws on wage garnishment. They can't take over a certain percentage and it looks like they are wanting to do it.

Your employer can't comply, legally. It doesn't mean you don't owe the money, it just means your employer isn't going to take it out of your check. You can still probably pay the state disbursement people.

Wow this is what my lawyer told me verbatim.

If your lawyer agreed to something you didn't want him do, you have a serious problem with attorney management. You should either make things very clear to him, like don't do anything without my permission, or fire him and get a decent attorney.

He told me he was agreeing to 22% spousal support, on top of my 28% CS PRIOR to agreeing to it. I then told him that that wouldn't leave me much to live off...He argued that I was paying that much before when I lived in the house when I paid the mortgage. So he said that was the way the judge was going to look at it.

He does this quite a bit: Predicting what the judge will or won't do or say.

[Fatheroffour]

Your attorney is there to argue your case. Not to go along with what the judge might decide. Not to advocate what is fair. Not to make the arguments for the other side.

I hate it when I read about dads sinking money into their attorney only to find out the attorney fails their ethical obligation of zealous advocacy for their client.

Sadly, it looks like your attorney is a dud and fails in his ethical responsibility. After you fire him, be sure to file a complaint and/or recount his failures on all the review sites you can find so that another dad might not be taken.

[defaultuser]

Wow this is what my lawyer told me verbatim.

I know because I've been there and done that. I was ordered to pay something like 70% of my take home pay at one point, and my employer didn't take it out either. Now I'm down to about 18% of what I make and I have the kids most of the time.

Someday soon, she'll be paying me child support.

What FOF says is correct. How are you doing in terms of making a case for custody?

[Hopin4daBest]

Lawyer says I'm going to win custody. I've pleaded with him to file a motion to modify temp orders. Which in essence means to take the kids from NJ and stiff her with EOW, while kicking her out the house. Basically to reverse oyr roles.

My grounds for this are that:
1) In 9/2011 the judge ordered me out the house by saying it was only for the winter.
2) GAL sees that NJ is insane.

Lawyer says he will only do what the GAL says. According to my lawyer, the GAL wants a psych evaluation done on NJ.

I persist and tell him that I'd at least want to TRY to modify the temp orders first. He tells me to get lost, that he won't waste his time. He says there's NO WAY the judge will throw NJ out the house unless it's severe circumstances, which he says we don't yet have. So he says he's not going to "get embarrassed" by the judge by motioning to modify.

He says it'll be anywhere from $2-5K to hire a pro to come in and certify that NJ is a severely paranoid schizophrenic with several past hospitalizations, and a danger to raising kids full time.

So I sorta feel stuck now. I could go along with this, pay the money..Or fire him, and pay the money anyways, just to retain a new guy..Who might file my motion to modify, and fail, where then they might say I have to do the psych eval ANYWAYS...

[kidsdadtexas]

Lawyer says I'm going to win custody. I've pleaded with him to file a motion to modify temp orders. Which in essence means to take the kids from NJ and stiff her with EOW, while kicking her out the house. Basically to reverse oyr roles.

My grounds for this are that:
1) In 9/2011 the judge ordered me out the house by saying it was only for the winter.
2) GAL sees that NJ is insane.

Lawyer says he will only do what the GAL says. According to my lawyer, the GAL wants a psych evaluation done on NJ.

I persist and tell him that I'd at least want to TRY to modify the temp orders first. He tells me to get lost, that he won't waste his time. He says there's NO WAY the judge will throw NJ out the house unless it's severe circumstances, which he says we don't yet have. So he says he's not going to "get embarrassed" by the judge by motioning to modify.

He says it'll be anywhere from $2-5K to hire a pro to come in and certify that NJ is a severely paranoid schizophrenic with several past hospitalizations, and a danger to raising kids full time.

So I sorta feel stuck now. I could go along with this, pay the money..Or fire him, and pay the money anyways, just to retain a new guy..Who might file my motion to modify, and fail, where then they might say I have to do the psych eval ANYWAYS...

I'm on my 2nd attorney after i filed 1 year ago. I asked my first attorney to file a motion to modify and the reponse i got was that we needed to wait until the social study is completed. It's now 6 months later and still no social study. They knew that I was having probs my parenting time and still refused. She was always taking a defensive approach rather than an offensive approach, some attorneys are passive and others are aggressive. This is a war and I'm looking for a shock and awe in my next hearing. She was fired and my 2nd attorney filed the motion to modify along with their notice of appearance. Best decision i made.

[Thoughts?]

So put the money stuff aside -- exactly WHY does your attorney feel you'll win custody? Your ex certifiable? As in Borderline, Narcicistic through the roof? OCD?

More info please. Garbage in, garbage out.

[Groundhogday]

Your attorney is there to argue your case. Not to go along with what the judge might decide. Not to advocate what is fair. Not to make the arguments for the other side.

I hate it when I read about dads sinking money into their attorney only to find out the attorney fails their ethical obligation of zealous advocacy for their client.

Sadly, it looks like your attorney is a dud and fails in his ethical responsibility. After you fire him, be sure to file a complaint and/or recount his failures on all the review sites you can find so that another dad might not be taken.

When a judge didn't give me residential credit (with 40% residence) in an advisory opinion (5 minutes in chambers), my attorney refused to argue my case. In fact, she spent a week trying to rationalize his decision, telling me to enjoy my time with the kids, etc... and just accept the advisory opinion (and pay an extra $700/mo for 15 years). I fired her and then when I was researching this judge's opinions found out that two days after my advisory opinion she was representing a woman who didn't want to give her ex residential credit (he had the kids 43% of the time). In a nutshell, my attorney didn't want to rock the boat because (a) that would have been too much work and (b) my case gave her a precedent to help win her next case.

I think this sort of thing happens more than people realize.