Alimony and Child Support

Welcome to Lawshelf’s video course on alimony and child support. In this course, we will go through these two major types of support payments that can be ordered after separation, divorce or out-of-wedlock births. We will look at the history of alimony and child support and the evolution of both concepts over time. This is a basic-level course and no previous knowledge of domestic relations law is required.

After going over the history and summarizing the current status of support payments, the course focuses on jurisdiction, or which courts can you go to for enforceable support orders? We will also look at federal and interstate support mechanisms and institutions that have been developed to make enforcing support orders easier.

In modules 2 and 3, we’ll delve into spousal and child support in more depth. We’ll discuss when liability arises and the principles between determining their amounts. We will also look at enforcement mechanisms, including penalties that can be assessed against “deadbeats.”

Module 4 is devoted to looking at the federal and state laws, including model acts, under which support orders are enforced, while module 5 takes a look at resolving conflicts between parties and on the specific types of penalties that are assessed. We will also look at the state remedies of contempt of court, wage garnishment, license suspension and even criminal penalties.

Finally, in module 6 we will get into the nuts and bolts of determining support amounts and discuss the formulas that are used to calculate child and spousal support.

This course will give you the tools you need to research and apply spousal and child support concepts in any jurisdiction and we hope you’ll enjoy it along the way.

Best of luck and we welcome your feedback.