Lansing Child Support Lawyer

Child support sounds like simple math until it is your paycheck, your parenting schedule, and your child’s needs on the line. Michigan uses a statewide formula, but the numbers that go into the formula — income, overnights, health-care and child-care costs — are exactly where cases are won or lost. Baldori Law makes sure the inputs are right and the order is fair.

How Michigan Calculates Child Support

Courts set support using the Michigan Child Support Formula, and they must follow it unless applying it would be unjust or inappropriate — a deviation the judge has to justify on the record. The main drivers are:

• Both parents’ incomes. Wages, self-employment income, bonuses, and in some cases the income a parent could reasonably earn (imputed income) when someone is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed.
• The number of overnights. The parenting-time schedule changes the calculation — which is one reason support and custody and parenting time should be handled together.
• The number of children being supported.
• Add-ons. Health insurance premiums, uninsured medical expenses, and work-related child-care costs are divided on top of the base amount.

Support generally continues until a child turns 18, and can extend while the child finishes high school full-time, up to age 19 and a half.

Where Disputes Actually Happen

• Real income. Self-employment, cash income, fluctuating overtime, and new spouses’ contributions raise hard questions about what counts.
• Imputation. If a parent quits a job or works below their ability, the court can calculate support on earning capacity instead of actual earnings.
• Overnight counts. Because overnights move the number, schedule disputes often hide inside support disputes.
• Deviation requests. High debt, special needs, or unusual expenses sometimes justify departing from the formula — but only with evidence.

Enforcement and Changes in Ingham County

Support orders in the Lansing area are administered with the Friend of the Court, and payments flow through the state disbursement unit. When a parent falls behind, enforcement tools can include income withholding, tax-refund intercepts, license suspension, and contempt proceedings. If you are the one who fell behind because of a job loss or health problem, the worst move is silence — orders can be modified going forward, but arrears generally cannot be erased retroactively.

Either parent can ask to modify support when circumstances change substantially — a job change, a lasting income shift, or a new parenting schedule — and the Friend of the Court also reviews orders periodically on request.

Support When Parents Were Never Married

Child support does not depend on marriage. When parents were never married, legal parentage usually has to be established first — commonly through an affidavit of parentage signed at or after the child's birth, or through a paternity action — and once it is, the same support formula applies. Establishing parentage also opens the door to custody and parenting-time orders, so unmarried parents often resolve all three together.

How Baldori Law Helps

We handle support at every stage: getting the first order right, challenging numbers built on bad inputs, pursuing enforcement when payments stop, and modifying orders when life changes. Support questions almost always connect to divorce and custody, and our Michigan family law team keeps the whole picture in view.

For help with a child support matter in Lansing, East Lansing, Okemos, or the surrounding counties, contact Baldori Law for a consultation.