Maplewood Resident Jason Dodson To Help Develop Child Support Guidelines

Maplewood resident Jason Dodson has been appointed to the 2012 Child Support Guidelines Advisory Group by the Supreme Court of Missouri’s Family Court Committee.

An article in Missouri Lawyers Media states the group collects and analyzes testimony from Missouri residents to help develop new child support guidelines.

Dodson works for Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM).

He joined Legal Services in 2006 as a staff attorney in the Family Unit, Lasting Solutions Project. His practice focuses in the St. Charles area, helping victims of abuse in orders of protection, divorces, paternity, and custody cases.

During law school, he volunteered for LSEM’s 1993 Flood Relief Project and then interned the following summer. He was also a member of the Volunteer Lawyers Program.

Dodson returned to Legal Services after spending the first several years of his practice trying cases before juries and judges in the St. Louis area on behalf of injured people.

, who died in Feb., 2011.

Dodson sent in this additional information:

The 2012 Child Support Guidelines Advisory Group is a statewide committee consisting of family court judges, commissioners and a few attorneys.

By law, Missouri's child support guidelines have to be updated every four years. The Missouri Supreme Court formed the Advisory Group to assist in providing guidance on how the guidelines should be amended.

We took public testimony in early March and received some good input from citizens, including other attorneys, in the St. Louis area.

For the last three and a half years, I have served on what is called the Missouri Child Support Guidelines Review Subcommittee. The intensive work that the subcommittee has done will assist the work of the Advisory Group. Ultimately, the Missouri Supreme Court will implement new rules in 2013 with whatever amendments it chooses to accept.