Cutting the Cost of Getting Child Support : The law: More parents are representing themselves in court to save time and money. With adequate preparation, this approach works well.

Karolyn Wolf still is smarting from the nearly $5,000 she paid a private attorney to work out a child support and custody arrangement with the father of her son, Joseph.

Pleased with the $525 monthly figure she ended up agreeing on without setting foot into a courthouse, she still wound up losing a year’s worth of support payments because of the legal fees.

Many custodial parents have found themselves caught in the bureaucracy of backlogged child-support enforcement offices or are unable to afford a private lawyer. Stories like Wolf’s keep some from seeking child support from the absent parent and cause others to settle for checks based on decade-old orders that barely cover the cost of a gym suit.

Yet it is possible to modify or establish a child-support order with an absent parent without the legendary wait or the monumental legal fees that begin with retainers of $1,000 to $30,000 for private attorneys.

By filling out forms yourself, filing subpoenas and stating your case before a judge or master--rather than having an attorney or a government case worker represent you--you usually can save time and money. This legal route is referred to as self-representation or pro se .

“You can normally file here today and have your hearing within six to eight weeks,” says William Turner, domestic relations master for the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Md., where about 10% of the parties in domestic cases represent themselves.

In August, Turner says, 45 litigants in domestic cases presented their own cases. “I’ve noticed an increase in self-representation over the past two to three years,” he says. “It might have to do with the economy and the fact that the courts have become more cooperative in the process.”

Just be sure to do your homework before appearing in court, or you could shortchange yourself.

“Be prepared to devote about 10 to 15 hours of uninterrupted time to learning what you need to do in order to succeed,” says Judge Michael J. Valentine of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court in Fairfax, Va.

“Otherwise, you’ll be better off going to the DCSE (Division of Child Support Enforcement) office or hiring counsel,” adds the judge, who says he’s seen as many as 100 people represent themselves well in the 12 years that he’s been on the bench. “Far more have not been adequately prepared,” he warns.

Those ready for the challenge of self-representation should begin by calling their jurisdiction’s juvenile and domestic relations court (usually where the custodial parent and child permanently live or where they lived for the first six months of the child’s life). Ask about procedures.

When Joanne Mikulski was confronted with the possibility of a wait of up to a year because of child-support enforcement office procedures, she decided to get the support and custody case rolling herself. After she met with an intake officer and filed subpoenas, her hearing was scheduled for about two months later.

As a result of going pro se through the Fairfax County, Va., court system, Mikulski says, she thinks she’ll gain at least an additional $3,000 in support money (figured at $500 a month for six months) simply because she estimates that the petition will be served and entered on the court’s books that much earlier.

Mikulski, though, does not want the emotional burden of presenting the case to the judge herself. Instead, she plans to bring her attorney into the process in time to accompany her to the hearing. “I figure I’ll be slicing my legal bill in half,” she says.