Can I Get Attorneys Fees From Having To Go to Court for Child Support
Hi, this is Tulsa divorce attorney Keith Flinn at the Wirth Law office. The question is, can I get attorney’s fees for having to go to court for child support? Well, I’d like to answer the question, can you get attorney’s fees for having to go to child support? And the answer is, yes, you can. Now, the way that somebody would do that would be to get a child support order enforced via a contempt filing in which the court orders that person to pay the past due child support amount and then to separately file for attorney’s fees as the prevailing party.
Obtaining Attorney’s Fees
Generally speaking, a court will award attorney’s fees to a party who has successfully acquired a judgment for past due child support. However, there is the old idiom, a person cannot draw blood from stone. And so oftentimes if you’re in a circumstance where you are owed money for child support, it probably means that the other side is not exactly full of cash and ready to pay for or able to pay for attorney’s fees. And so there is some strategy in terms of applying for past due child support.
Considerations for Applying for Attorney’s Fees
It does cost money to have an attorney present for you and you would like to apply for attorney’s fees. And so sometimes if a person is in the position to wait to apply for that child support, sometimes waiting a few months or trying to acquire the monies directly from the person if there are no protective orders in place by way of saying, hey, you’re not paying your child support, can allow an arrearage to be large enough that it feels more appropriate to bring attorney into the case. That being the case, obviously, the bigger the judgment, the harder it is to collect as against another person.
Call to Action
Thanks. This was Tulsa child support attorney Keith Flinn, the Wirth Law Office. Please give us a call at 918-770-7117 if you have any other questions or would like to schedule a low-cost consultation.