Boston Divorce Lawyer Blog

If you have recently become eligible for SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance), it is likely that your minor child is also receiving a “Dependency Benefit”:  his or her own monthly benefit from the Social Security Administration (SSA).  The question is how this will affect your financial obligation in terms of child support?  In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it can make a big difference.

In the past I’ve discussed how to modify Child Support Orders.  In that post, I pointed out that to modify the order, the court will need to see that a significant change in material circumstances has occurred.  Becoming eligible for SSDI is exactly the type of change I was referring to.  In fact, the benefit your child receives might even completely cancel out your weekly child support payments!

Consider what a Child Support Order is really for:  to ensure that your child is financially supported.  That the support is coming in is what counts.  If the Dependency Benefit your child receives is as much or more* than the amount you should be paying under the support guidelines, there’s little reason for you to be paying additional money above and beyond that.  By bringing your SSDI benefit (and your child’s corresponding Dependency Benefit) to the attention of the court, you may be able to substantially decrease, if not eliminate entirely, your weekly obligation.

*Note that where the Dependency Benefit is greater than the amount owed under the guidelines, your child will continue to receive the full benefit, and you will not be entitled to the difference between these amounts.

Child support is always modifiable in the probate courts of Massachusetts.  The courts realize that either parent’s income will fluctuate during a child’s life and that the financial needs of children change over time.  Whether the original child support order was made pursuant to a Separation Agreement or after a trial, an order of the court, child support can be modified.

The standard used to modify child support is that there must be a significant change in circumstances.  Something significant must have happened between the last order of child support and the new order you’re trying to obtain by a Complaint for Modification.  A significant change can be a dramatic raise in the other parent’s income or them winning the lottery, a big decrease in your income, or a big increase in the child’s needs (such as an accident or injury).

A request for modification will not be approved if there isn’t a significant change.  As you are asking the court to change the child support order, you must prove to the court that there is a significant change for the court to approve an increase (or decrease) in child support.

In a novel case that’s being heard by the Court of Appeals here in Massachusetts, a woman who had 2 daughters through artificial insemination is demanding that her anonymous sperm donor’s identity be revealed so that she could establish paternity, child support and obtain medical information.  The case is on appeal from Boston, Suffolk County probate court. [article here]

Sperm banks’ list of depositors are typically sealed tighter than a Swiss bank vault (although recently, that’s not so tight either).  This is to protect the possible children of the donors and more importantly the donors themselves.  The outcome of this case could jeopardize the entire sperm donation industry and therefore the hopes of a lot of women who wish to be artificially inseminated by anonymous donors.

If the identity of this donor were ordered to be disclosed – even if he ultimately would not be ordered to pay child support – it would put a chill on anyone who would even consider being a sperm donor.  They would fear the threat of having to be dragged into family court and established to be the father.

Legally, I don’t believe the donor’s identity should be revealed.  It would break the mother’s contract with the sperm bank and it would go against public policy.  Personally, I believe this is a very selfish and desperate action by the mother.

Boston Magazine has a great article on alimony this month. [link here]

Alimony in Massachusetts is a mess.  That’s a simple statement with not so simple consequences.  Alimony in Massachusetts is a mess because there is no why and no how to it.  There is no rhyme or reason.  If no one ever articulated a reason for alimony or a “how” to calculate it, then the legal system is little more than a game of Judges picking favorites.

I’ve had opportunities to represent both husbands and wives in alimony cases.  Whether alimony gets awarded and how much depends mainly on the length of marriage, the earnings of both parties and the judge.  There are judges I’ve appeared in front of that I do not agree with and I believe has a wrong outlook on what alimony is suppose to accomplish.  Then there are judges that are extremely wise and contrary to the Boston Magazine article, do see the role of alimony as finite and they do impute income to the recipient spouse (usually the wife).  But despite the wisdom of these judges, they are restricted by statute and various case law on what they can do – and that is a shame.

There is a movement going on in Massachusetts right now to reform alimony and I believe in it.  Recently, child support was reformed in Massachusetts to take it more in-line with other states.  Child support now counts the contribution of both parents in supporting the minor children, not simply the payor as was the case in the past.  There is now a fair and fixed formula for child support.  Have all child support lawyers gone out of business because of it? No.  There will always be those cases where there are conflicts and that’s where lawyers come into play.  Alimony should be no different.  There should be a finite limit and there should be a formula to calculate it.

[Massachusetts Alimony Reform]

Here are the top 10 reasons why you don’t need a divorce lawyer for an uncontested divorce:

1. You know exactly what the “merger” and “survival” clause of the Separation Agreement means.
2. You’ve divorced so many times that you know all the pitfalls and traps of a divorce (and your name is also Elizabeth Taylor)
3. You know exactly what parts of your Separation Agreement is modifiable, when it’s modifiable and how to modify it
4. You’d rather wait and spend thousands of dollars down the road to modify or file contempt actions then for a lawyer to tell you the pitfalls today
5. You expect the court’s clerks to give you legal advice
6. You expect the judge to give you legal advice
7. You know exactly how to write out the terms of child custody, child support, alimony, health insurance, property division, tax returns provisions, etc.
8. Your spouse’s divorce lawyer told you to sign on the dotted line with no explanation and you’re comfortable with that
9. You are a family court judge
10. You are a divorce lawyer