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Bridging The Justice Gap In Family Law: Repurposing Federal Iv-D Funding To Expand Community-Based Legal And Social Services For Parents, Lisa V. Martin, Stacy Brustin
Bridging The Justice Gap In Family Law: Repurposing Federal Iv-D Funding To Expand Community-Based Legal And Social Services For Parents, Lisa V. Martin, Stacy Brustin
Faculty Publications
Parents in family court overwhelmingly proceed pro se; however, in child support courtrooms, government attorneys representing the state child support agency frequently play a pivotal role. These attorneys represent the state’s ostensible interests in ensuring that children are financially supported and in preventing welfare dependence; they do not represent individual parents. The outcomes of child support proceedings have profound, long-term constitutional and financial implications for parents, yet litigants rarely understand their rights or the role of the government.
Originally, the goal of state child support enforcement efforts was to recapture the costs of welfare expenditures. In 1990, two-thirds of cases …