August is Child Support Awareness Month

Last month, Illinois adopted an “income shares” model for determining child support, joining 39 other states in considering the income of both parents in calculating the money needed to raise their child. “Income shares” for calculating child support is based upon a model developed by the Federal Of...

Amicus Brief in People v. Gray in the Illinois Supreme Court

Chicago Appleseed and Chicago Council of Lawyers have joined an amicus curiae brief in the Illinois Supreme court case of People v Matthew Gray. The brief was authored by LAF and Dentons US LLP and we are grateful for their work and the opportunity to join the brief.   The Defendant, Matthew...

Hearing Officers in a Consolidated Domestic Relations Division

Three years after our Constitutionality analysis of the child support courts in the Cook County Domestic Relations Division, Presiding Judge Grace Dickler has issued an operations plan for consolidating the division. We are excited to announce that beginning in January 2017, the Domestic Relations D...

Anticipated Changes to Child Support Enforcement Guidelines

The Obama administration reportedly plans to make changes to regulatory rules governing child support obligations of incarcerated parents. The rule changes are designed to prevent large debt accumulation and ease the re-entry of parents upon release so they can fully meet parental responsibilities a...

Amicus joined in the Illinois Appellate Court

Chicago Appleseed joined an amicus brief in Sanchez v Torres, in the Appellate Court of Illinois.  We joined with Loyola University Civitas ChildLaw Center, the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, the John Marshall Law School Domestic Vi...