On behalf of Stange Law Firm, PC posted in Child Support on Wednesday, January 22, 2014.
On our Illinois divorce law blog, we often keep you updated on developments from other states regarding the evolution of divorce laws and how they apply to parents, especially fathers. The latest state to take on the issue of fair child support and child custody arrangements is wisely looking to other states with existing laws to determine how to best proceed.
Even though a bill didn’t make it through the South Dakota Legislature last year, the bill’s sponsors are likely to bring it back this year — albeit with some revisions. The bill, if it were to pass, would give family law judges more factors to weigh when it comes to child custody arrangements in divorce cases.
The goal of the legislation is to make the ruling of time split between parents more equal — toward a “shared parenting” mindset. Fathers’ rights activists there said that the idea has met with resistance in the past because people assumed that it meant folks were lobbying for dads to have their child support payments lowered. But they said that isn’t the case.
Bills in the past haven’t made much headway in the Legislature. But the state bar association has had input on this version of the bill, ideally making it more palatable to lawmakers. The bill’s sponsors modeled their bill on Iowa’s laws, which seem to have been successful.
Navigating the divorce process can be difficult for fathers who may feel disadvantaged the way our family law system operates. An experienced attorney can help to counterbalance those feelings.
Source: The Capital Journal, “Lawmakers set to introduce child custody bill,” Joel Ebert, Jan. 21, 2014
