Tennessee (and I believe every other state) offers free legal help to custodial parents trying to enforce child support orders.  The same free help is available to get an Order of Paternity and an order for child support once paternity is established.   And the free legal representation in pursuing child support or paternity is available whether there is any financial need or not.

        Generally the child support enforcement unit of the office of the district attorney general has it's own attorneys and its own staff, virtually always referred to as IV-D (that's "four-D", as in Roman numeral IV).  The enforcement units were created as a result of the 1975 Social Security Act, Title IV-D.  The federal statute provides funding to states and requires that each state drawing the federal funds establish, enforce and modify child support orders for families in need.  The maximum application fee charged a client is $25, and there is no fee at all for custodial parents drawing AFDC.  Because this requirement is linked to money the states want, they all provide IV-D enforcement.

What If They Don't Do Anything?
        If the agency responsible for handling cases under Title IV-D doesn't do anything, or is grossly incompetent, you always complain... just like you can complain about problems with any government service, and unfortunately with just about as much chance of your complaint making any sort of difference.  A group called ACES (Association for Child for Enforcement of Support) is dedicated to helping custodial parents get the help in collecting child support that they are supposed to under federal law.  You can reach them either by phone at 800-738-ACES, or by clicking here and going to their web site.

Advantages & Disadvantages
        But the attorneys and staff in such offices often are highly competent and know the law and how to get a child support order enforced better than any local attorney you will go to.  Because it's often the only thing the IV-D attorney does, he or she often becomes quite expert at it.  Unfortunately because they are providing their service at no charge they also tend to be swamped with a caseload that is utterly impossible to manage, leaving them unable to properly prepare, unable to spend the time and effort needed to locate assets, unable to spend any real time with the custodial parent to answer questions, and sometimes with too few phone lines to even handle all of the calls from custodial parents calling for help or to check on the status of their cases.

        The IV-D attorneys are also able to begin enforcement efforts in one state and then to process everything to the IV-D enforcement agency in any other part of the country, to make sure a parent delinquent with child support is brought into court and forced to make payments.  Again, unfortunately when the case is transferred to an office three or four states away (or even in the same state but three or four counties away) that's generally similarly overloaded and you then are not even able to stop by the office of the attorney handling the case to see what is happening... and an attorney is far more likely to move a case involving a face he can see than to press on a case involving someone never met and who never calls to complain about delays.  This means cases starting in one county and getting transferred to another IV-D office somewhere else often get lost in the shuffle, or take years for anything to happen.

        But the IV-D legal services are free, and if you don't mind suffering all of the problems that go along with anything provided to you at no charge (short supply, difficult to get ahold of, unresponsive to individual consumer demands, inability to pick exactly the one you want), they generally do a good job.  They also can very simply help attach any federal and state income tax refunds due to noncustodial parents delinquent in their child support and send it to the custodial parent to be applied toward the child support arrearage.  If the arrearage is more than $750 you may even be able to have the local IV-D office request IRS Full Collection services... meaning the IRS would join the effort to collect the back support, going at it just like back taxes.

Whose Attorney Is It?
        One other thing you do need to keep in mind, however, is that IV-D attorneys may offer free legal help to the custodial parent, but Tennessee law (at TCA 71-3-125) makes clear that the IV-D attorney is not the attorney of the custodial parent -- the IV-D attorney represents the state of Tennessee.  This means the IV-D attorney does not have to respond to or answer to the custodial parent the way an attorney would in private practice.  It also means that the attorney-client privilege may not be the same.  (Click here for an explanation of the attorney-client privilege.)

To Read The Statutes
        There are several Tennessee statutes involved in establishing the state's IV-D enforcement units. Click here for a list of some of the more important statutes, including a summary of each statute and a link to the full text of the statute.

Program Organization
        To see how the IV-D program in Tennessee is organized, click here.

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