Texas Child Support

Part of a child's welfare is child support. Whether you are going through a divorce, need to enforce child support ordered by the Court, or need to modify current child support, the experienced family law attorneys at The Decker Law Firm provide useful solutions and strong representation in and out of Court.

In a divorce, an experienced family law attorney can also help you determine the proper amount child support. Child support is simply a math problem, but you need to know what type of income is included and excluded when determining your child support.

Your children are entitled to child support pursuant to the Texas Family Code. If your ex-spouse is behind in child support, the penalty for not paying child support can be jail time. The threat of jail time is what entices people who owe back child support to come current in their child support payments. An enforcement of child support is a very technical process in that you must prove certain specific elements for the threat of jail time to be a real possibility.

An option other than hiring an attorney would be to contact the Office of the Attorney General for help in recouping unpaid child support. Unfortunately, that effort will take longer as the attorney general has literally thousands of enforcement cases sitting on their desk. It could take anywhere from a few months to years for the Office of the Attorney General to get to your case. If you hire a private family law attorney, you can reduce that time down to a month or two depending on the court's availability.

If you are successful in your enforcement and if the enforcement is done properly, it is possible to recoup the money you paid your attorney to get your unpaid child support from the person who owes the child support to you.

Conversely, if your spouse has filed an enforcement of child support against you, there are certain ways you may avoid jail time but it will take a skilled attorney to navigate the legal system to give you that chance due to the technical nature of child support enforcement.

The family law lawyers at The Decker Law Firm are experienced and successful in representing both those trying to get unpaid child support and those defending an enforcement of child support.

From time to time after a divorce, a parent paying child support may need his or her child support lowered due to job loss, the addition of biological children to the family, or some other material change in circumstances.

On the other hand, if you are receiving child support, the option of an increase in child support may be available to you if certain criteria are met.

The Decker Law Firm is familiar with laws governing child support as well as the courts in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas metroplex (D/FW) and can successfully guide you through the ins and outs. The guidelines for child support are found in the Texas Family Code and a skilled Texas family law attorney can review the law with you and discuss any possible diversion from or exceptions to the code. The Decker Law Firm will do this for you.