Cathy Middleton Tackles Tough Topics: Child Support, Parenting Challenges, Domestic Violence + more
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
What's up.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
It's way up with Angela ye, and today we're doing
something really special. I've always said that I always like
to defer to experts when something is outside of my
realm of expertise. And we have Kathy Middleton esquire with us.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I know you were just leaving court, so I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yes, yes, anything to be here to help out the.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Cause making some time. So the other day we did
have an ask ee caller. He left a voicemail because
he was like he couldn't he was too emotional to
even talk about it. And he was discussing issues that
he was having with seeing his kids.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Let's play that call for her right now.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I want some advice.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
How do I get my kids?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Big?
Speaker 5 (00:42):
I ain't seeing my kids in three years before he
smelt with my best man own the wed night. So
that's why divorce happened. He's better because I found out
that she slept with the best band and better do
tell me how can I give my kids back?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Please? Okay, so you hear his question now. I tried
to help him as best as I could. I told
him the earlier that he gets a lawyer and establishes
some type of visitation, the better it is for him.
But I want you to answer as somebody who you
deal with family planning, family law, you deal with child support,
you deal with visitation, custody, all of those things. So
(01:22):
what would you tell somebody he hasn't seen his children.
He pays child support, but what can he do?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, Basically, Angela, you gave him good advice. That's the
first thing that he needed to do was to reach
out to contact legal counsel so that he could get
a petition started for child custody and slash visitation. By
doing that, what he will do is he'll start the process,
(01:48):
the ball rolling towards getting access, some kind of access
back to his children. Because what happened to him is
he's become a victim of parental alienation. He's not seeing
the children, he's not speaking with the children, no communication whatsoever.
The longer the time lapses between the last time he
saw the children and the next time he sees them,
the likelihood shrinks by the year as to whether or
(02:11):
not he will be able to come back into those
children's lives. So, if his children are still young in
the tender years, you know, under ten that kind of thing.
The likelihood is very great that the court will issue
in order for some kind of standard visitation schedule. It
will probably be supervised visits because he has been away
from the children's lives for a while, but they will
(02:32):
put a regular schedule in place with the goal of
having it moved from supervised to unsupervised bi weekly visitation
with him. But if the children start reaching the age
of preteenhood twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and they're saying, you know,
I don't know this man, I don't want to be
around him, then the court is going to have a
difficult time forcing children to have visitation with somebody that
(02:56):
they really don't know, who's actually a stranger to him. Today,
his job is to really do as much as he
can now to get the ball rolling in court and
get a case started.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So if the child, say, let's say the kid is
seven years old, and they're like, I don't want to
see my dad, I don't know him, I'm scared of him.
My mom has told me awful things about him, then
what does the court do.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Well, I have a case like that right now in
King's County, and so what the court has done is
the initial thing that they did was they established a
supervised visitation schedule which was being supervised by a social
worker who was attempting to reconnect or reunite the child
with the father. The problem with these visits is that
(03:37):
they were virtual visits, so there was a lot of
room for mismanagement in terms of the mother kind of
kind of poisoning the child against the father, saying that
the child was not interested in the visits and that
sort of thing. And when the court realized that that
was not a suitable way of trying to reunite these parties,
they then moved to a therapeutic supervised visit schedule where
(04:01):
we now have an actual psychiatrist who is overseeing the visitation,
counseling the parties, dealing with the issues that the child
has as a result of having been away from the
father for an extended period of time, as well as
the issues that the father's having as a result of
being disconnected with the child. And so we're seeing a
lot more progress take place now the parties have been
(04:22):
the father and son has at least been able to
see each other and be in each other's presence. It
may be within the confines of a doctor's office, but
at least the process is beginning to take place for reunification.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know, I've heard people tell stories about how now
they realize growing up, my mom was the one that
was blacking things from happening and me having in a
relationship with my father, and you don't want that to
be the case later on in life. But a lot
of women did also call up while this topic was happening.
And here is what one woman had to say as
she left a message.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
This is a very complicated and such a situation, especially
when it comes to survivors and victors of domestic violence.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
It depends on a situation.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Now, all right, so how does a domestic violence situation
affect a father's visitation or custody? Because she said, what
if there's domestic violence of love, then what happens?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Okay, Well, we often at my office as well, have
domestic violence cases, and we have to navigate the murky
warders of being able to maintain the integrity of the
child's relationship with the father and the father's relationship with
the child even in the midst of a domestic violence
order protection situation. In New York state. What we tend
(05:37):
to do is if there are issues of domestic violence
and it's an order protection case, a family offense petition
has been filed, the court will usually issue an order
protection that has a carve out, and the carve out
what that does is it allows a father to be
able to continue to have consistent visits with their child
(05:58):
even while they're abiding by the terms and conditions of
an order of protection. So if an order protection requires
a father to stay away from the mother, he still
can be able to have access to the child. Let's
say if there's visitation, bi weekly visitation will take place
drop off and pick up, and say a police precinct
(06:19):
or maybe another relative will facilitate the drop off and
pick up of the child, and the father will be
able to then take the child to their home and
continue visitation as usual and return the child at the
end of the visit.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Now that could be a real issue.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Though.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Let's say a woman is frightened because she's like, he
beat me up, he put his hands on me, and
I'm not comfortable with my child being around somebody that
has these anger issues.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Then what happens, Well, the court generally speaking, will look
at where the violence was directed towards So if it
was directed towards the woman and only the woman, the
view of the court is that it should not be
the case that we now cut off all relationship that
the father would have had with any of his children.
What they will do is say, Okay, that may be
(07:04):
an adult issue, and so we're going to try to
maintain the integrity of the child parent relationship to the
best extent possible. Okay, If, however, the domestic violence involves
the children as well, then what may happen is the
visitation with the parent and child may be a supervised
visitation schedule. So there's going to be parameters placed around
(07:27):
when and how and where those visitations can the visitation
can take place, and how long it can take place.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
What if your as a mother, let's say your child's
father beats the kids and you don't like that, but
that's his form of discipline. What happens in a situation
like that where you're like, look, this is abuse.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, New York State, we're a corporal punishment state, which
means that a parent is allowed to engage in a
certain amount of corporal punishment against their child. If you're
going to do a paddle on the bat on the
backside with an open palm, that's acceptable. If you're talking about,
you know, beating a child within an inch of their lives,
that's not acceptable. So it depends on what the corporal
(08:09):
punishment is. Does it go over the line to actually
be defined as child abuse or does it stay within
the purview of what is acceptable on the New York
State guideline.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Wow, okay, we actually have one of your current clients
on the line. He wanted to call in and talk
about his case and what he's been going through.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Hey, Darrow, what's up.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I'm a father. I have two sons, but my oldest son,
he's always been living. We used to live together, he
and his mother and myself, and you know, after a
few years we went out separate way, but I was
still in his mother's life, helping out with her daughters,
(08:47):
but also definitely being president for my son, like I
was a PTA president of the school. I've been the
chairperson for the Sea Pad committee, always been in terns
and engaged with the education and cultivation. So he's been
living under two groups, which you know, I realized is
very difficult, you know for a young a young boy
(09:09):
to be in the middle of. But it's been a
battle and I felt like it was an unnecessary battle.
So he's been living under my roof where I'm also
financially responsible for his whereabouts, transization, food, you know, just
going out sport, just being financially responsible. And the court
case did not recognize that or acknowledge that, you know,
(09:34):
they actually held a judgment against me. And it's you know,
it's been a really wild chain of events and I
just would like to put this behind me because it's
really and I will say I allowed it to I
didn't know how to handle this, hindered me financially, and
that's why I needed Kathy to represent me after ten years.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Wow, it took you ten years.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
No, he went through the experience in his odyssey for
ten years.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Take ten years to come to you finally find me.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And Daryl's is a case in which you have a
father who is living with the child. The child was
living in his household, but Daryl had an order for
support to pay support to the mother who's living somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And so you know, you can't bite the apple twice.
You know, you can't squeeze blood out of a turn
up two times. So what we had to do was
to go in. What we're fighting right now is trying
to get the child support order modified to reflect the
fact that for at least a year or more, this
child had been residing under Darrel's roof and being provided
for by him, being fed and clothed while the mother
(10:39):
was collecting child support.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Right, she should be paying him.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Touse Supplorier, right, exactly, she should have been paying him.
And then the other issue is Daryl has an order
in place in which the court imputed income to him
based upon what the law believes he should have been earning,
despite the fact that in reality he's been looking for
employment but just has not been able to a fine
employment that would be enough to provide for the order
(11:04):
such that it is. So he's fallen behind, he's in arrears,
and those reels keep snowbawling.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That message up your credit exactly, it could garnish your checks.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Fanactly. He's on jail for that.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
You can go to jail for that, you ultimately can.
And so his life has been financially destroyed, and so
piece by piece we're trying to reconnect the pieces to
the puzzle and get his life back on track, Darrel?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Where you hesitant because, as you know, some people are
looking at it like lawyers can be expensive and I'm
already behind.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I'm sorry say that again.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Well you're also looking at it like lawyers can be
expensive and you already were behind on these payments that
you shouldn't even have had to pay.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely, And what they called pro state litigan,
I was there was no lawyer that would take my
case because because of what Council Middleton said, you know,
like there were no lawyers who were trying to take
that case at all. Oh yeah, it was going to
be a further expense on top of that, and then
(12:04):
just putting my head on the shopping block if I
had to go in there and represent myself.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Oh no, but I don't know exactly. Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Well, I'm glad that you guys connected and that this
has been working for you. We've been hearing amazing things
about Kathy Middleton.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
She's great, she's great, she's tuned in.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
All right, Well, thank you, Darren. Good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I hope everything is working at I can't even imagine
how stressful.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
This has been.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Okay, so now let me ask you this, miss Middleton.
After all this happens, will he be able to get
back child support?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Like?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
How does that happen? And what about the money that
he's paid up until this point.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That's one of the biggest questions that people ask when
they find themselves in a situation where they they've paid
what they shouldn't have paid. What will the court system
do for them to get their money back? Sadly, the
family court system and the office with Child Support Enforcement
will not do anything. They won't look the finger to
help a father, usually the father who's paying the child's work.
They won't do anything to help them. But they'll recommend
(13:06):
that they do is to go to civil court and
file either small claims case or civil court case if
the amount is exceeding twenty five to five thousand dollars
or less than twenty five thousand, so he will have
to go on his own through another court system, wow,
and another case so hard in order to get reimbursement.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
All right, now we have another call it because, like
I said, this day, when we had this ask ye,
the phone lines blew up.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
There were so many people leaving messages.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So we have a few, because I know that there's
certain things that come to you repeatedly.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
All right, here's another question.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
Yeah, Hi, my name is Andrew English. I just heard
on the radio about you guys talking about fathers that
have been alienated from their children. I left the mother
of my children when my oldest son was about five
and my youngest was about three because we argued every
single day. And I have not seen my oldest son
since he was five years old. I pay child support
(14:01):
every single month. She doesn't let me have phone conversations.
I don't get pictures of my kids. I don't get
communication from my children or anything. And I took her
to court after finding her because she disappeared with my
children for quite some time, and after locating her and
taking her to court because her family is very wealthy
(14:22):
and I couldn't afford but the least expensive attorney. I
was forced to take supervised visitation, and my oldest son
refused to see me, and my heart breaks every single
day of my life because of it.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I heard the emotion in his voice. Yeah, you can
hear it when he was discussing that. Okay, so what
would you say to this man?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Well, for him, I would say to continue with the
supervised visits. If he has an order that allows him
to have at least supervised visits, he has something that
allows him to continue to maintain some kind of connection
to his child. The child may not want to participate
in a visit, and it may be necessary that those
supervised visitations become now therapeutic supervised visitation, so that there's
(15:05):
a psychologist that comes into the room and helps to
draw the bridge between the father and the child and
do whatever is necessary in order to make that happen.
But he is at all times to continue the visitation
because if he fails to, he's basically going to lose
his job.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
It's just giving it up. Yeah, you're also an author,
so I see you have this book. Boy at that
child support, So talk to me about this book.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So this book was written for men who are struggling
with child support and paternity issues, which is a big
issue that we have here in New York State and
throughout the country, and for those individuals who, much like
the caller indicated, that they don't have the economic resources
to retain counsel, but still want to have good solid
information as to what to do and how best to
(15:50):
navigate the family court system and the Office for Child
Support Enforcement. This book is a good guide to help
that person find out how to manage a child's work case,
how to protect their rights with regard to child support,
the things that are necessary to look out for so
that they don't end up being in a situation where
they're they're drowning and child supporter rears and possibly end
(16:11):
ending up going to jail.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Right, because that can catch up to you very quick,
very easily. Yeah, you can definitely pile on.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Now, one thing that the listeners said also that had
a question that she he couldn't find his kids, he
couldn't locate them. What about their fathers that want to
track down their kids, but they have no idea where
this woman is living, maybe she even moved left the state, whatever, Right,
how can they then fast track being able to see
their kids or even find out where their kids are
living well?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
And that's an excellent question, And I mean, my first
response is to hire a good investigator to find out
that information for you. But many people don't have the
economic resources to do that, right. So that's one of
the things that we covered in this book was there
are a number of things that fathers can do to
track down the mothers of their children and the children themselves.
(16:59):
And the best way to do that is if you
have an actual child support order in place and the
Office of Child Support Enforcement is collecting, then there's access
to the state and federal locator search, okay, And that's
a free search that the court can do for the father.
The clerk's office can do for that father to find
out where these checks are going so that if they're
(17:21):
going to let's say George or a Florida someplace like that,
they'll be able to track down what the address is
so that he could then find the mother for purposes
of filing a case for custody or visitation. Now, that
is only an opportunity that's available for someone who does
not have an order protection. If there's an order protection
that's been issued against a father, then the mother's address
(17:43):
is going to be considered confidential and the court will
never release it for any purpose. And also sometimes clerks
will not release the address even to individuals who don't
have an order protection, and that case you may need
legal counsel to help you get that information.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Now, another thing that I said when the listener call
that sparked this whole conversation was communicating right with your
child's mother. Just I was like, just be really careful
about what it is that you're writing, if you're texting,
sending emails I agree or whatever, because those things I
was like, always just look at it like this could
come up in court and this could be used against me.
(18:18):
What would you say to people? I know they have
apps where you can communicate through an app with each other,
So can you talk about that a little bit as
an alternative?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
What we have apps? The court system uses a number
of them. There's a free one called app Close Parenting App.
There's Our Family Wizard is an app that I think
the fee is about one hundred and fifty dollars per year.
The benefit of these apps is that what they do
is they allow a parent to be able to communicate
(18:47):
and keep to maintain the integrity of what the communication is,
so that if there's a very bad relationship between the
parties and their communication skills are lacking, and there's a
lot cursing and threats of bodily harm and that kind
of thing, those kinds of apps you can't erase any
kind of threat that you make on that app So
(19:09):
if a guy's got a mother who's making threats to
him all the time, she can't you know, text him
and make a threat and then erase it in the
way that she could on the regular text message. And
so he's got evidence in that case to be able
to bring the court to show that, Okay, I'm being
verbally abused here, this is the evidence that shows that
she's verbally abusing me every time I try to reach
(19:31):
out to find out about the well being of my child.
And that's the benefit of those Okay, there's a number
of them all right.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Now, we do have another person who left a message.
I want to make sure we at least get to
a couple of them. And then I have some more questions.
Here's this next caller.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
I get to see my daughter only Thursday to Saturdays.
I drop her all Sundays, but the other days Monday,
Tuesday's Wednesdays, I cannot call her. I cannot speak to her,
not because I have anything with the law or anything,
but my wife, well my ex wife won't allow me to.
Even for New Years, I try to call my daughter.
I have to text us just to hey, please, can
I speak to my daughter? Just to tell her Happy
New Years. It's three years old. I've never set the
(20:07):
New Years with her, not even a response to like
your back.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So is there a way to go to court to
be able to botnate holidays?
Speaker 7 (20:14):
Well, I'm afraid to go to the court because everybody
I speak to says that I'm going to lose the
case because it's a mother The mother always wins, So
I don't even want to take my cancers with that.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
People do say that the mother always wins when it
comes to course. So what do you say to that?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Okay, I would say that he's getting some bad advice.
He needs to contact the lawyer right away, because if
he contacts an attorney, an attorney will lay out the
law to him in very clear terms that as a father,
he's got a right to have consistent visits with his child.
He's getting some visitation based upon what he's saying, but
it's not sufficient based upon what the law provides. And
(20:49):
so under the law, he's supposed to be getting alternative holidays.
He should be getting alternative weekends on those days when
the child is not in his home or visiting with him.
He's supposed to be able to have either telephonic or
FaceTime visits with the child. There should be like an
hour set aside, and most of my cases will have
like seven o'clock every evening the father is allowed to
(21:09):
either have a FaceTime call or telephone call with the child.
That's good, yes, And if there's like if the child
is spending Christmas with the mother, the child will spend
New Years with the father, and you know, you'll go
odd years, even years in terms of alternating holidays. There's
usually going to be a week long visit that a
father will have in the summertime. Sometimes it's both in
(21:29):
the months of July and the month of August so
that he can be able to take the child on vacation.
It's in Disney World at someplace like that. But this
this call clearly is not getting meaningful visitation privileges, not
in amount that he should be having. So he should,
you know, pay no attention to what he's being told.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Contact that a mom would be excited that the father
would want to step up. On the on the flip
side of that, what can a mom do who's child's
father doesn't step up and doesn't provide other than child support,
because you know, money is what it is, but there's
nothing like quality time. And nobody wants to see their
kids sad or upset when daddy didn't come get them.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
What would you say a mother can do?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
What are her rights as far as trying to enforce
a connection.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I have quite a few cases like that right now
as well. And it's more difficult on that side, because
it's harder to make a man do what he doesn't
want to do than it is to make a mother,
you know, participate in the visitation schedule. The best that
she can do is to try to maintain a strong
relationship with him communication wise, and keep the doors of
(22:38):
communication open so that he understands that when he fails
to visit with the child, if he says he's going
to come and then doesn't come, it has a dilatorious impact,
a negative impact upon that child. That he's disappointing the child,
and the child is going to begin to see him
a certain way and paint him in a negative light.
And sometimes I think that's enough to wake up a
(22:58):
man to say, you know, I don't want my child
looking at me, you know, sideline and thinking that you know,
I'm not a truthful person. A lot of times that'll
wake them up and shake them into doing the right thing.
But other than that, there's no law that will force
them to say, come and participate in visitation.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
What if, as a mom, you're concerned about the environment.
What if you're like, I don't like the environment that
the people that this person's going to have my kid around.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
What can you do in that situation?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The best thing to do is if the case is
in court, is to ask the court to do a
court ordered investigation of his living arrangements. And that's done
for free. It's done under the Administration for Children's Services.
They'll send a social worker out to his home. They'll
speak to any interview anyone who's in the home, including him,
the father, and anyone else who resides in the home.
(23:48):
They'll go through a thoroughs check of the home, through
the refrigerator, through the cabinets, through drawers in the bedrooms
to make sure that the environment is suitable and safe
for a child to be able to it in. So
there's a lot that can be done there. You should
definitely speak up and say something about it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
What about for people who move out of state, like,
let's just say yeah, relocation cases yeah. The mother is like, look,
we're getting out of here. New York is expensive. We
want to have a better life somewhere else. And the
father is like, damn, how am I going to see
my kid if you just up and move. What happens
in a situation like that.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
So in New York State, what we do is we
under the Court of Appeals. There's a lot of cases
that have come down recently in which the court has
said that where there are situations where a mother is
relocating out of the state for economic purposes. Let's say
her job has transferred her or she's gotten an offer
from a new company that's going to provide her with
(24:45):
a larger income. The court generally speaking will allow they
will permit this to take place for her to relocate,
but she really has to be able to show that
there's actual substantial increase and substant improvement in her financial
situation that's going to inure to the benefit of the child.
If she can't establish that case, then the court is
(25:07):
going to say, no, we're not going to grant the relocation.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Wow, that's going to make things really hostile exactly between people.
All right, Well, this one's all fantastic information and I
just want people to feel encouraged because I know and
time wise, what's the process?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Because I know it can be really hard to.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Get a court date even so Let's just say somebody
is just starting their journey, they haven't even contacted a lawyer,
and they're like, you know what I heard Kathy Middleton
esquire on way up with Angela.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yee.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I'm going to reach out to her office and see
what I can do. I haven't seen my kids in
two years. How long would you say that process, normally
in general, would take just to even go to court.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
It depends. It could take anywhere from six months to
a year. Some cases can be a little longer and
some even a little shorter, depending upon the circumstances surrounding
the case. So someone contacts me at my office, my
number is one eight hundred eight one eight three to
three FAM Law one. That's one eight three to three
FAM Law one. If they contacted me today and we
(26:07):
got them into the office and we retained them, we
would probably be looking at a court appearance about six
weeks from now. And you make it a temporary order
for visitation in place pending a final determination of custody.
You make it any number of things. You make it
a reduction in your child support. Those cases move relatively
quickly through the court system. Also depends upon which burrow
(26:29):
that you're located in. Some burrows move more quickly than others.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
How do you get a reduction in child support?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Just well, in New York stay if there's a change
in circumstances that can qualifies under New York state law,
and an unanticipated change in your financial circumstances that is
at least results in at least fifteen percent reduction in
your income from what it used to be when the
order was initially issued, you could be entitled to a
doward modification in your order for support.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
You've got to handle it, though.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
You got to handle it.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
You got to handle it.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, the sooner the better, and that is one of
the things that we are really speaking about today. Handle it.
You might have been letting something drag out for years.
Maybe you thought it was going to get better over time.
Shall calm down, you know, maybe our relationship will improve.
We've seen it happen with other people, but it's not improving.
You really do have to be proactive and getting things done.
The sooner the better, Okay. You also though, work with women,
(27:19):
so I don't want people to think this is just
about men. You do also work with women and helping them,
because you also have a book helping women child support.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Get that child support? Yes, and so we half of
my clients are women, and I help women with child support, paternity,
custody issues, domestic violence, divorce. You know, we're equal Opportunity office.
We discriminated against no one.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yes, this just came up because of a call that
we had exit and I do feel like men it's
harder for them people to get help, Like people don't
take into consideration people who want to be in their kids' lives. True,
and there's some type of hinderance there, And so I
don't want guys to feel like I just give up.
This is too difficult, it's not going to happen. I
can't deal with this woman, and I'd rather just let
it go. You know, you gotta make it happen, and
(28:03):
it might be hard now, but hopefully once you get
everything established, because I think that's important too. So if
you can't handle it amongst each other through mediation, you
might have to just go to court and get something
that is solid.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And you may end up in a fight, but your
child should be worth or children should be worth the fight.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
You know, people would be like, fight for your kid.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
And you can't just pop up to somebody's house because
people would be like, yeah, that was me. I would
show up to the house and I would demand this.
You can't do that might get arrested. You might get
arrested that it'll be even harder for you to see
a kid later.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
True exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So let's go the right.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Route people, and it might be alonger road, but it'll
be more beneficial exactly for everybody involved. All right, Well,
I appreciate you so much for coming. I know there's
going to be a ton of people that are going
to be hitting you up. But you do have books
available for purchase too, in case somebody is like, Okay,
I need to read up on this some more too
for myself exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
And so they can reach me at one eight three
to three FAMI law one, or they could visit my
website which is www dot Kathy Middleton dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I saw you went to Howard, Yes we did, and Temple, yes.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Temple, Okay, we love that.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yes indeed, all right, Well, thank you so much Again,
it does matter who your attorney is and who represents you,
somebody that really cares. And we've heard some positive responses
from people who worked with you, and I gonna tell
how passionate you are just from our conversation after so
thank you, Thank you for this valuable information.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well
What's up.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
It's way up with Angela ye, and today we're doing
something really special. I've always said that I always like
to defer to experts when something is outside of my
realm of expertise. And we have Kathy Middleton esquire with us.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I know you were just leaving court, so I appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yes, yes, anything to be here to help out the.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Cause making some time. So the other day we did
have an ask ee caller. He left a voicemail because
he was like he couldn't he was too emotional to
even talk about it. And he was discussing issues that
he was having with seeing his kids.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Let's play that call for her right now.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
I want some advice.
Speaker 5 (00:39):
How do I get my kids?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Big?
Speaker 5 (00:42):
I ain't seeing my kids in three years before he
smelt with my best man own the wed night. So
that's why divorce happened. He's better because I found out
that she slept with the best band and better do
tell me how can I give my kids back?
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Please? Okay, so you hear his question now. I tried
to help him as best as I could. I told
him the earlier that he gets a lawyer and establishes
some type of visitation, the better it is for him.
But I want you to answer as somebody who you
deal with family planning, family law, you deal with child support,
you deal with visitation, custody, all of those things. So
(01:22):
what would you tell somebody he hasn't seen his children.
He pays child support, but what can he do?
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Well, Basically, Angela, you gave him good advice. That's the
first thing that he needed to do was to reach
out to contact legal counsel so that he could get
a petition started for child custody and slash visitation. By
doing that, what he will do is he'll start the process,
(01:48):
the ball rolling towards getting access, some kind of access
back to his children. Because what happened to him is
he's become a victim of parental alienation. He's not seeing
the children, he's not speaking with the children, no communication whatsoever.
The longer the time lapses between the last time he
saw the children and the next time he sees them,
the likelihood shrinks by the year as to whether or
(02:11):
not he will be able to come back into those
children's lives. So, if his children are still young in
the tender years, you know, under ten that kind of thing.
The likelihood is very great that the court will issue
in order for some kind of standard visitation schedule. It
will probably be supervised visits because he has been away
from the children's lives for a while, but they will
(02:32):
put a regular schedule in place with the goal of
having it moved from supervised to unsupervised bi weekly visitation
with him. But if the children start reaching the age
of preteenhood twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and they're saying, you know,
I don't know this man, I don't want to be
around him, then the court is going to have a
difficult time forcing children to have visitation with somebody that
(02:56):
they really don't know, who's actually a stranger to him. Today,
his job is to really do as much as he
can now to get the ball rolling in court and
get a case started.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So if the child, say, let's say the kid is
seven years old, and they're like, I don't want to
see my dad, I don't know him, I'm scared of him.
My mom has told me awful things about him, then
what does the court do.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Well, I have a case like that right now in
King's County, and so what the court has done is
the initial thing that they did was they established a
supervised visitation schedule which was being supervised by a social
worker who was attempting to reconnect or reunite the child
with the father. The problem with these visits is that
(03:37):
they were virtual visits, so there was a lot of
room for mismanagement in terms of the mother kind of
kind of poisoning the child against the father, saying that
the child was not interested in the visits and that
sort of thing. And when the court realized that that
was not a suitable way of trying to reunite these parties,
they then moved to a therapeutic supervised visit schedule where
(04:01):
we now have an actual psychiatrist who is overseeing the visitation,
counseling the parties, dealing with the issues that the child
has as a result of having been away from the
father for an extended period of time, as well as
the issues that the father's having as a result of
being disconnected with the child. And so we're seeing a
lot more progress take place now the parties have been
(04:22):
the father and son has at least been able to
see each other and be in each other's presence. It
may be within the confines of a doctor's office, but
at least the process is beginning to take place for reunification.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You know, I've heard people tell stories about how now
they realize growing up, my mom was the one that
was blacking things from happening and me having in a
relationship with my father, and you don't want that to
be the case later on in life. But a lot
of women did also call up while this topic was happening.
And here is what one woman had to say as
she left a message.
Speaker 6 (04:56):
This is a very complicated and such a situation, especially
when it comes to survivors and victors of domestic violence.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
It depends on a situation.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Now, all right, so how does a domestic violence situation
affect a father's visitation or custody? Because she said, what
if there's domestic violence of love, then what happens?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Okay, Well, we often at my office as well, have
domestic violence cases, and we have to navigate the murky
warders of being able to maintain the integrity of the
child's relationship with the father and the father's relationship with
the child even in the midst of a domestic violence
order protection situation. In New York state. What we tend
(05:37):
to do is if there are issues of domestic violence
and it's an order protection case, a family offense petition
has been filed, the court will usually issue an order
protection that has a carve out, and the carve out
what that does is it allows a father to be
able to continue to have consistent visits with their child
(05:58):
even while they're abiding by the terms and conditions of
an order of protection. So if an order protection requires
a father to stay away from the mother, he still
can be able to have access to the child. Let's
say if there's visitation, bi weekly visitation will take place
drop off and pick up, and say a police precinct
(06:19):
or maybe another relative will facilitate the drop off and
pick up of the child, and the father will be
able to then take the child to their home and
continue visitation as usual and return the child at the
end of the visit.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Now that could be a real issue.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
Though.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Let's say a woman is frightened because she's like, he
beat me up, he put his hands on me, and
I'm not comfortable with my child being around somebody that
has these anger issues.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Then what happens, Well, the court generally speaking, will look
at where the violence was directed towards So if it
was directed towards the woman and only the woman, the
view of the court is that it should not be
the case that we now cut off all relationship that
the father would have had with any of his children.
What they will do is say, Okay, that may be
(07:04):
an adult issue, and so we're going to try to
maintain the integrity of the child parent relationship to the
best extent possible. Okay, If, however, the domestic violence involves
the children as well, then what may happen is the
visitation with the parent and child may be a supervised
visitation schedule. So there's going to be parameters placed around
(07:27):
when and how and where those visitations can the visitation
can take place, and how long it can take place.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
What if your as a mother, let's say your child's
father beats the kids and you don't like that, but
that's his form of discipline. What happens in a situation
like that where you're like, look, this is abuse.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Well, New York State, we're a corporal punishment state, which
means that a parent is allowed to engage in a
certain amount of corporal punishment against their child. If you're
going to do a paddle on the bat on the
backside with an open palm, that's acceptable. If you're talking about,
you know, beating a child within an inch of their lives,
that's not acceptable. So it depends on what the corporal
(08:09):
punishment is. Does it go over the line to actually
be defined as child abuse or does it stay within
the purview of what is acceptable on the New York
State guideline.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Wow, okay, we actually have one of your current clients
on the line. He wanted to call in and talk
about his case and what he's been going through.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Hey, Darrow, what's up.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I'm a father. I have two sons, but my oldest son,
he's always been living. We used to live together, he
and his mother and myself, and you know, after a
few years we went out separate way, but I was
still in his mother's life, helping out with her daughters,
(08:47):
but also definitely being president for my son, like I
was a PTA president of the school. I've been the
chairperson for the Sea Pad committee, always been in terns
and engaged with the education and cultivation. So he's been
living under two groups, which you know, I realized is
very difficult, you know for a young a young boy
(09:09):
to be in the middle of. But it's been a
battle and I felt like it was an unnecessary battle.
So he's been living under my roof where I'm also
financially responsible for his whereabouts, transization, food, you know, just
going out sport, just being financially responsible. And the court
case did not recognize that or acknowledge that, you know,
(09:34):
they actually held a judgment against me. And it's you know,
it's been a really wild chain of events and I
just would like to put this behind me because it's
really and I will say I allowed it to I
didn't know how to handle this, hindered me financially, and
that's why I needed Kathy to represent me after ten years.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Wow, it took you ten years.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
No, he went through the experience in his odyssey for
ten years.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Take ten years to come to you finally find me.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
And Daryl's is a case in which you have a
father who is living with the child. The child was
living in his household, but Daryl had an order for
support to pay support to the mother who's living somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And so you know, you can't bite the apple twice.
You know, you can't squeeze blood out of a turn
up two times. So what we had to do was
to go in. What we're fighting right now is trying
to get the child support order modified to reflect the
fact that for at least a year or more, this
child had been residing under Darrel's roof and being provided
for by him, being fed and clothed while the mother
(10:39):
was collecting child support.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Right, she should be paying him.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Touse Supplorier, right, exactly, she should have been paying him.
And then the other issue is Daryl has an order
in place in which the court imputed income to him
based upon what the law believes he should have been earning,
despite the fact that in reality he's been looking for
employment but just has not been able to a fine
employment that would be enough to provide for the order
(11:04):
such that it is. So he's fallen behind, he's in arrears,
and those reels keep snowbawling.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
That message up your credit exactly, it could garnish your checks.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Fanactly. He's on jail for that.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
You can go to jail for that, you ultimately can.
And so his life has been financially destroyed, and so
piece by piece we're trying to reconnect the pieces to
the puzzle and get his life back on track, Darrel?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Where you hesitant because, as you know, some people are
looking at it like lawyers can be expensive and I'm
already behind.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I'm sorry say that again.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Well you're also looking at it like lawyers can be
expensive and you already were behind on these payments that
you shouldn't even have had to pay.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely, And what they called pro state litigan,
I was there was no lawyer that would take my
case because because of what Council Middleton said, you know,
like there were no lawyers who were trying to take
that case at all. Oh yeah, it was going to
be a further expense on top of that, and then
(12:04):
just putting my head on the shopping block if I
had to go in there and represent myself.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
Oh no, but I don't know exactly. Okay.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Well, I'm glad that you guys connected and that this
has been working for you. We've been hearing amazing things
about Kathy Middleton.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
She's great, she's great, she's tuned in.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
All right, Well, thank you, Darren. Good luck to you.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
I hope everything is working at I can't even imagine
how stressful.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
This has been.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Okay, so now let me ask you this, miss Middleton.
After all this happens, will he be able to get
back child support?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Like?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
How does that happen? And what about the money that
he's paid up until this point.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That's one of the biggest questions that people ask when
they find themselves in a situation where they they've paid
what they shouldn't have paid. What will the court system
do for them to get their money back? Sadly, the
family court system and the office with Child Support Enforcement
will not do anything. They won't look the finger to
help a father, usually the father who's paying the child's work.
They won't do anything to help them. But they'll recommend
(13:06):
that they do is to go to civil court and
file either small claims case or civil court case if
the amount is exceeding twenty five to five thousand dollars
or less than twenty five thousand, so he will have
to go on his own through another court system, wow,
and another case so hard in order to get reimbursement.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
All right, now we have another call it because, like
I said, this day, when we had this ask ye,
the phone lines blew up.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
There were so many people leaving messages.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So we have a few, because I know that there's
certain things that come to you repeatedly.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
All right, here's another question.
Speaker 6 (13:40):
Yeah, Hi, my name is Andrew English. I just heard
on the radio about you guys talking about fathers that
have been alienated from their children. I left the mother
of my children when my oldest son was about five
and my youngest was about three because we argued every
single day. And I have not seen my oldest son
since he was five years old. I pay child support
(14:01):
every single month. She doesn't let me have phone conversations.
I don't get pictures of my kids. I don't get
communication from my children or anything. And I took her
to court after finding her because she disappeared with my
children for quite some time, and after locating her and
taking her to court because her family is very wealthy
(14:22):
and I couldn't afford but the least expensive attorney. I
was forced to take supervised visitation, and my oldest son
refused to see me, and my heart breaks every single
day of my life because of it.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I heard the emotion in his voice. Yeah, you can
hear it when he was discussing that. Okay, so what
would you say to this man?
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Well, for him, I would say to continue with the
supervised visits. If he has an order that allows him
to have at least supervised visits, he has something that
allows him to continue to maintain some kind of connection
to his child. The child may not want to participate
in a visit, and it may be necessary that those
supervised visitations become now therapeutic supervised visitation, so that there's
(15:05):
a psychologist that comes into the room and helps to
draw the bridge between the father and the child and
do whatever is necessary in order to make that happen.
But he is at all times to continue the visitation
because if he fails to, he's basically going to lose
his job.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
It's just giving it up. Yeah, you're also an author,
so I see you have this book. Boy at that
child support, So talk to me about this book.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So this book was written for men who are struggling
with child support and paternity issues, which is a big
issue that we have here in New York State and
throughout the country, and for those individuals who, much like
the caller indicated, that they don't have the economic resources
to retain counsel, but still want to have good solid
information as to what to do and how best to
(15:50):
navigate the family court system and the Office for Child
Support Enforcement. This book is a good guide to help
that person find out how to manage a child's work case,
how to protect their rights with regard to child support,
the things that are necessary to look out for so
that they don't end up being in a situation where
they're they're drowning and child supporter rears and possibly end
(16:11):
ending up going to jail.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Right, because that can catch up to you very quick,
very easily. Yeah, you can definitely pile on.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Now, one thing that the listeners said also that had
a question that she he couldn't find his kids, he
couldn't locate them. What about their fathers that want to
track down their kids, but they have no idea where
this woman is living, maybe she even moved left the state, whatever, Right,
how can they then fast track being able to see
their kids or even find out where their kids are
living well?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
And that's an excellent question, And I mean, my first
response is to hire a good investigator to find out
that information for you. But many people don't have the
economic resources to do that, right. So that's one of
the things that we covered in this book was there
are a number of things that fathers can do to
track down the mothers of their children and the children themselves.
(16:59):
And the best way to do that is if you
have an actual child support order in place and the
Office of Child Support Enforcement is collecting, then there's access
to the state and federal locator search, okay, And that's
a free search that the court can do for the father.
The clerk's office can do for that father to find
out where these checks are going so that if they're
(17:21):
going to let's say George or a Florida someplace like that,
they'll be able to track down what the address is
so that he could then find the mother for purposes
of filing a case for custody or visitation. Now, that
is only an opportunity that's available for someone who does
not have an order protection. If there's an order protection
that's been issued against a father, then the mother's address
(17:43):
is going to be considered confidential and the court will
never release it for any purpose. And also sometimes clerks
will not release the address even to individuals who don't
have an order protection, and that case you may need
legal counsel to help you get that information.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Now, another thing that I said when the listener call
that sparked this whole conversation was communicating right with your
child's mother. Just I was like, just be really careful
about what it is that you're writing, if you're texting,
sending emails I agree or whatever, because those things I
was like, always just look at it like this could
come up in court and this could be used against me.
(18:18):
What would you say to people? I know they have
apps where you can communicate through an app with each other,
So can you talk about that a little bit as
an alternative?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
What we have apps? The court system uses a number
of them. There's a free one called app Close Parenting App.
There's Our Family Wizard is an app that I think
the fee is about one hundred and fifty dollars per year.
The benefit of these apps is that what they do
is they allow a parent to be able to communicate
(18:47):
and keep to maintain the integrity of what the communication is,
so that if there's a very bad relationship between the
parties and their communication skills are lacking, and there's a
lot cursing and threats of bodily harm and that kind
of thing, those kinds of apps you can't erase any
kind of threat that you make on that app So
(19:09):
if a guy's got a mother who's making threats to
him all the time, she can't you know, text him
and make a threat and then erase it in the
way that she could on the regular text message. And
so he's got evidence in that case to be able
to bring the court to show that, Okay, I'm being
verbally abused here, this is the evidence that shows that
she's verbally abusing me every time I try to reach
(19:31):
out to find out about the well being of my child.
And that's the benefit of those Okay, there's a number
of them all right.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Now, we do have another person who left a message.
I want to make sure we at least get to
a couple of them. And then I have some more questions.
Here's this next caller.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
I get to see my daughter only Thursday to Saturdays.
I drop her all Sundays, but the other days Monday,
Tuesday's Wednesdays, I cannot call her. I cannot speak to her,
not because I have anything with the law or anything,
but my wife, well my ex wife won't allow me to.
Even for New Years, I try to call my daughter.
I have to text us just to hey, please, can
I speak to my daughter? Just to tell her Happy
New Years. It's three years old. I've never set the
(20:07):
New Years with her, not even a response to like
your back.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So is there a way to go to court to
be able to botnate holidays?
Speaker 7 (20:14):
Well, I'm afraid to go to the court because everybody
I speak to says that I'm going to lose the
case because it's a mother The mother always wins, So
I don't even want to take my cancers with that.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
People do say that the mother always wins when it
comes to course. So what do you say to that?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Okay, I would say that he's getting some bad advice.
He needs to contact the lawyer right away, because if
he contacts an attorney, an attorney will lay out the
law to him in very clear terms that as a father,
he's got a right to have consistent visits with his child.
He's getting some visitation based upon what he's saying, but
it's not sufficient based upon what the law provides. And
(20:49):
so under the law, he's supposed to be getting alternative holidays.
He should be getting alternative weekends on those days when
the child is not in his home or visiting with him.
He's supposed to be able to have either telephonic or
FaceTime visits with the child. There should be like an
hour set aside, and most of my cases will have
like seven o'clock every evening the father is allowed to
(21:09):
either have a FaceTime call or telephone call with the child.
That's good, yes, And if there's like if the child
is spending Christmas with the mother, the child will spend
New Years with the father, and you know, you'll go
odd years, even years in terms of alternating holidays. There's
usually going to be a week long visit that a
father will have in the summertime. Sometimes it's both in
(21:29):
the months of July and the month of August so
that he can be able to take the child on vacation.
It's in Disney World at someplace like that. But this
this call clearly is not getting meaningful visitation privileges, not
in amount that he should be having. So he should,
you know, pay no attention to what he's being told.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Contact that a mom would be excited that the father
would want to step up. On the on the flip
side of that, what can a mom do who's child's
father doesn't step up and doesn't provide other than child support,
because you know, money is what it is, but there's
nothing like quality time. And nobody wants to see their
kids sad or upset when daddy didn't come get them.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
What would you say a mother can do?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
What are her rights as far as trying to enforce
a connection.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
I have quite a few cases like that right now
as well. And it's more difficult on that side, because
it's harder to make a man do what he doesn't
want to do than it is to make a mother,
you know, participate in the visitation schedule. The best that
she can do is to try to maintain a strong
relationship with him communication wise, and keep the doors of
(22:38):
communication open so that he understands that when he fails
to visit with the child, if he says he's going
to come and then doesn't come, it has a dilatorious impact,
a negative impact upon that child. That he's disappointing the child,
and the child is going to begin to see him
a certain way and paint him in a negative light.
And sometimes I think that's enough to wake up a
(22:58):
man to say, you know, I don't want my child
looking at me, you know, sideline and thinking that you know,
I'm not a truthful person. A lot of times that'll
wake them up and shake them into doing the right thing.
But other than that, there's no law that will force
them to say, come and participate in visitation.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
What if, as a mom, you're concerned about the environment.
What if you're like, I don't like the environment that
the people that this person's going to have my kid around.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
What can you do in that situation?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The best thing to do is if the case is
in court, is to ask the court to do a
court ordered investigation of his living arrangements. And that's done
for free. It's done under the Administration for Children's Services.
They'll send a social worker out to his home. They'll
speak to any interview anyone who's in the home, including him,
the father, and anyone else who resides in the home.
(23:48):
They'll go through a thoroughs check of the home, through
the refrigerator, through the cabinets, through drawers in the bedrooms
to make sure that the environment is suitable and safe
for a child to be able to it in. So
there's a lot that can be done there. You should
definitely speak up and say something about it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
What about for people who move out of state, like,
let's just say yeah, relocation cases yeah. The mother is like, look,
we're getting out of here. New York is expensive. We
want to have a better life somewhere else. And the
father is like, damn, how am I going to see
my kid if you just up and move. What happens
in a situation like that.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
So in New York State, what we do is we
under the Court of Appeals. There's a lot of cases
that have come down recently in which the court has
said that where there are situations where a mother is
relocating out of the state for economic purposes. Let's say
her job has transferred her or she's gotten an offer
from a new company that's going to provide her with
(24:45):
a larger income. The court generally speaking will allow they
will permit this to take place for her to relocate,
but she really has to be able to show that
there's actual substantial increase and substant improvement in her financial
situation that's going to inure to the benefit of the child.
If she can't establish that case, then the court is
(25:07):
going to say, no, we're not going to grant the relocation.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Wow, that's going to make things really hostile exactly between people.
All right, Well, this one's all fantastic information and I
just want people to feel encouraged because I know and
time wise, what's the process?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Because I know it can be really hard to.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Get a court date even so Let's just say somebody
is just starting their journey, they haven't even contacted a lawyer,
and they're like, you know what I heard Kathy Middleton
esquire on way up with Angela.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yee.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I'm going to reach out to her office and see
what I can do. I haven't seen my kids in
two years. How long would you say that process, normally
in general, would take just to even go to court.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
It depends. It could take anywhere from six months to
a year. Some cases can be a little longer and
some even a little shorter, depending upon the circumstances surrounding
the case. So someone contacts me at my office, my
number is one eight hundred eight one eight three to
three FAM Law one. That's one eight three to three
FAM Law one. If they contacted me today and we
(26:07):
got them into the office and we retained them, we
would probably be looking at a court appearance about six
weeks from now. And you make it a temporary order
for visitation in place pending a final determination of custody.
You make it any number of things. You make it
a reduction in your child support. Those cases move relatively
quickly through the court system. Also depends upon which burrow
(26:29):
that you're located in. Some burrows move more quickly than others.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
How do you get a reduction in child support?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Just well, in New York stay if there's a change
in circumstances that can qualifies under New York state law,
and an unanticipated change in your financial circumstances that is
at least results in at least fifteen percent reduction in
your income from what it used to be when the
order was initially issued, you could be entitled to a
doward modification in your order for support.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
You've got to handle it, though.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
You got to handle it.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
You got to handle it.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, the sooner the better, and that is one of
the things that we are really speaking about today. Handle it.
You might have been letting something drag out for years.
Maybe you thought it was going to get better over time.
Shall calm down, you know, maybe our relationship will improve.
We've seen it happen with other people, but it's not improving.
You really do have to be proactive and getting things done.
The sooner the better, Okay. You also though, work with women,
(27:19):
so I don't want people to think this is just
about men. You do also work with women and helping them,
because you also have a book helping women child support.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Get that child support? Yes, and so we half of
my clients are women, and I help women with child support, paternity,
custody issues, domestic violence, divorce. You know, we're equal Opportunity office.
We discriminated against no one.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yes, this just came up because of a call that
we had exit and I do feel like men it's
harder for them people to get help, Like people don't
take into consideration people who want to be in their kids' lives. True,
and there's some type of hinderance there, And so I
don't want guys to feel like I just give up.
This is too difficult, it's not going to happen. I
can't deal with this woman, and I'd rather just let
it go. You know, you gotta make it happen, and
(28:03):
it might be hard now, but hopefully once you get
everything established, because I think that's important too. So if
you can't handle it amongst each other through mediation, you
might have to just go to court and get something
that is solid.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
And you may end up in a fight, but your
child should be worth or children should be worth the fight.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
You know, people would be like, fight for your kid.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
And you can't just pop up to somebody's house because
people would be like, yeah, that was me. I would
show up to the house and I would demand this.
You can't do that might get arrested. You might get
arrested that it'll be even harder for you to see
a kid later.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
True exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
So let's go the right.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Route people, and it might be alonger road, but it'll
be more beneficial exactly for everybody involved. All right, Well,
I appreciate you so much for coming. I know there's
going to be a ton of people that are going
to be hitting you up. But you do have books
available for purchase too, in case somebody is like, Okay,
I need to read up on this some more too
for myself exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
And so they can reach me at one eight three
to three FAMI law one, or they could visit my
website which is www dot Kathy Middleton dot com.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I saw you went to Howard, Yes we did, and Temple, yes.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
Temple, Okay, we love that.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yes indeed, all right, Well, thank you so much Again,
it does matter who your attorney is and who represents you,
somebody that really cares. And we've heard some positive responses
from people who worked with you, and I gonna tell
how passionate you are just from our conversation after so
thank you, Thank you for this valuable information.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Well
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Angela Yee
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