Family Courts Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

The Domestic Relations Hearing Officer Program is Helping Families

The good reputation of the hearing officer program in domestic relations is growing with its reach in the branch courts. In the branch courts, hearing officers are completing—on average—four divorces a day and hearing over 30 cases (divorce, parentage, IV-D and non-IV-D, parenting time and support i...

Statement of the Chicago Council of Lawyers and Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice on HB 4113 to amend the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act

HB4113—a bill currently moving through the Illinois Legislature—aims to modify provisions of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act that affect the allocation of parenting time and responsibility. The bill would change the standard used by courts to restrict a parent’s time with the...

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...

1 2 3 4 5