Asking why Section 3 is on the new child support guidelines worksheet is like asking why bad things happen to good people.  Everyone has a different theory and none of them are really satisfying. The 2009 Child Support Guidelines Worksheet had two sections which broke the worksheet down into an Income Section and a Calculation Section, with a resulting recommended child support amount.  The new 2013 Child Support Guidelines worksheet changes these two sections and the calculations, which he have discussed previously . In addition, the 2013 guidelines added a new section, Section 3 titled: AVAILABLE INCOME ABOVE $4,808 (If applicable.) In cases where the combined household income is less than $4,808 per week ($250,000 per year), Section 3 will show all zeros.  However, if the family income exceeds this figure, Section 3 displays the proportional amount that each party has left-over in gross income after using the first $4808 per week in combined income to calcu...

This past summer we posted a full blog series on issues facing Unmarried Parents in Massachusetts .  While many issues that unmarried parents face may be different than those faced by married parents, most of the issues will be the same.  Parenting a child still comes with may of the same worries, financial obligations, affections, and lessons, regardless of the parents' relationship with each other.  However, when legal realities collide with economic or practical realities, there may be significant differences in how unmarried parents are treated. Removal cases are one example of this disparity in Massachusetts.  Removal is a legal term of art for the simple concept of when one parent wants to move their residence out of state and take their child with them.  In Massachusetts, M.G.L. c. 208 Section 30 covers the removal of minor children in a divorce case, and prohibits removal without consent of both parents or order of the court.  We explore in wha...

One of the downsides of Collaborative Law, as with any alternative dispute resolution process, is that if you do not settle your case outside of court, there is still the risk that you will end up in court litigating your dispute.  Many people still choose to give amicable settlement a fair chance, but a common question when trying to make this choice is "how often do these cases succeed in settling outside of court?"  While every case is different and will present unique issues, there is now some available data to answer this question. The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) has collected data on Collaborative cases from the professionals involved in those cases through the use of an IACP Professional Practice Survey and reported some of their findings in The Collaborative Review  Spring 2012 issue. Based on a a total of nine hundred and thirty–three cases, which were reported from October 16, 2006 through July 6, 2010, they found that: ...

A Complaint for Contempt is the action by which you can request that the Court make a finding and issue sanctions for failure of one party to meet the obligations and requirements of a Court Order or Judgment.  Sanctions can include civil fines, payment of attorney's fees and costs, modification to existing orders or judgments, or in some cases incarceration. To succeed on a Complaint for Contempt you must prove two things: first, you must prove that there has been a "clear and unambiguous" order or judgment and second, you must prove that the other party "knowingly violated" the order. If the Contempt involves a financial order, depending on the remedy you are seeking, the US Supreme Court case of Turner v. Rogers  may also now require that you prove an "ability to pay."  Traditionally in Massachusetts the Court's have allowed "inability to pay" an order as a defense to certain enforcement attempts (such as incarceration).  This w...