A Call for Federal Oversight: End the Abuse of New York’s Family Court

New York’s Family Court fails to enforce its own child support laws. Non-compliant parents — even those who are clearly not indigent — are routinely given taxpayer-funded attorneys, allowing them to drag out cases for years, evade discovery, avoid accountability, and delay support payments to their children.

This is not justice. It is court-sanctioned financial abuse.

Safe parents and children are left waiting, often for years, while public resources are wasted propping up willful violators. Existing rules like 22 NYCRR § 205.43 are ignored. Loopholes are exploited. And hardworking New Yorkers are forced to subsidize the very parents who refuse to support their own kids.

Enough is Enough.

Lo’s Law is a common-sense solution that will:

• Prevent public funds from being used to subsidize post-separation financial abuse
• Strengthen the real enforcement of child support orders by introducing meaningful federal oversight
• Protect safe parents, children, and taxpayers from prolonged court-enabled evasion
• Protect the financial stability of safe parents who have been expected to personally finance expensive litigation against those who repeatedly violate child support orders and rely on assigned counsel/legal aid/public funds to do so
• Protects the attorneys who advocate for safe parents
• Hold willful violators accountable instead of rewarding them 
• Prevent scandal-plagued organizations like Assigned Counsel from draining taxpayer, state, and federal resources through their involvement in bad-faith litigation

No child should be deprived of the financial support they are legally entitled to. No safe parent should be bankrupted fighting a broken system. And no taxpayer should be forced to fund abusive litigation in Family Court.

Federal legislation and oversight are urgently needed to compel states like New York to stop enabling this behavior and start enforcing the law.

This is about protecting children and ending the misuse of public resources.

The Story Behind Lo's Law:

For approximately two and a half years, a New York child has been systematically deprived of the court-ordered support they are legally entitled to, despite the custodial parent’s efforts to enforce valid orders. What should have been a straightforward enforcement proceeding has instead exposed shocking systemic failures and egregious mismanagement in a New York Family Court.

The custodial parent has faced months and months of delayed hearings, endless adjournments, and repeated court appearances that have clogged the system and denied other families timely justice. Certified records of the child’s significant medical and educational needs have not led to timely enforcement. Taxpayer-funded Assigned Counsel has been provided to the non-custodial parent on multiple occasions, despite confirmed ineligibility.

This is not mere inefficiency. It is court-sanctioned financial abuse of vulnerable families. By failing to enforce its own orders and existing laws with meaningful consequences, the Family Court has effectively forced a lone parent and child to subsidize their own deprivation — while New York taxpayers foot the bill for prolonged proceedings and legal services.

These failures have significantly limited the child’s access to prescribed therapies, ongoing medical and dental services, and consistent childcare required to address the child’s documented medical and educational needs.

Lo’s Law was born from this injustice. It exists because New York’s Family Court has demonstrated, in painful detail, that it cannot and will not reliably enforce its own laws. Children should not have to wait years for the support they are legally entitled to — and the public should never be forced to subsidize post-separation abuse. 

Sign this petition now to support Lo’s Law and to ask your federal legislators to do the same!

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