Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee

Re: Husband In Contempt - Child Support

Tennessee, and I believe every other state, offers free legal help to custodial parents trying to enforce child

support orders or needing to get both an Order of Paternity and a child support order to be enforced in the first

place.

Generally the child support enforcement unit of the office of the district attorney general has it's own

attorneys and its own staff, virtually always referred to as IV-D (that's "four-D", as in Roman numeral IV). The

enforcement units were created as a result of the 1975 Social Security Act, Title IV-D. The federal statute

provides funding to states and requires that each state drawing the federal funds establish, enforce and modify

child support orders for families in need. The maximum application fee charged a client is $25, and there is no fee

at all for custodial parents drawing AFDC. Because this requirement is linked to money the states want, they all

provide IV-D enforcement.

Jes Beard

Jes Beard, Attorney at Law

737 Market St., Suite 601