The federal court action was suspended until Arlene and Bruce complete their divorce case in the New York state court. Legal observers doubt the federal court's willingness to entertain these cases, but the threat of RICO may prove effective at the bargaining table. After filing your divorce complaint, you may request court orders at a motion session of the Probate and Family Court. Judges issue temporary orders on matters such as custody, visitation, and support, but these orders do not become final until trial or settlement. Typically you find dozens of people waiting for the judge, so each case is allotted about ten or fifteen minutes.
Many judges send cases to the court's family service office before they hear the lawyers' arguments.
The office serves as an in-house mediation service staffed by court personnel called Family Service Officers or Probation Officers. Trained as mediators, these court officers are familiar with the issues, and well acquainted with the judges. Judges often rely upon the Family Service Officer for a recommendation, so it pays to listen carefully to the officer. As time passed those guidelines were implemented across the board in all cases involving child support. One extremely useful component of the guidelines is the provision for a wage assignment order directing employers to withhold child support payments and send payments to a designated recipient such as a custodial parent, the court, or a state agency.