Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Assuming you have a judgment for contempt or a sanction, as opposed to back child support, you can either sell the judgment to a collection agency, which will buy it from you for a discount, or you can seek to enforce the judgment through collection procedures on your own. If you sell the judgment at a discount, that means whatever is owed to you will now be owed to the collection agency, and in return the collection agency will pay you something less than the total of what is owed to you. The collection agency will have the burden of collecting on the judgment. So, let's say you are owed $300. The collection agency might pay you $100, and in return they will go to the trouble of collecting the money plus any interest that accumulates. Alternatively, some collection agencies will just keep a percentage of whatever they collect and pay you the rest.

If you elect to enforce the judgment yourself, you will do all of the work that the collection agency will do. If your ex-husband has a job with a regular paycheck, and if you have the time to pursue this, you can start to do things on your own. For example, you could initiate a debtor's examination. This requires him to come to court with various financial paperwork to show you, and from there you can ask for a writ of garnishment, to garnish your ex-husband's wages.

If the judgment is for child support, (not a judgment for a contempt sanction alone) then the easiest thing to do is contact the Division of Child Support at Washington DSHS, who will garnish your ex's back child support for you. They will not do this for a monetary judgment that is not for back support though. They may take longer to get it done, but they are definitely the cheapest option. The fastest option is to hire a local attorney, pay that attorney directly, and have them initiate collection procedures. This will be the most expensive, but fastest route.