Project Child Support: Kai Patterson Thanks His Supporters & Clients For Their Belief In Him, Which Led To His $65.5 Million TV Deal

Immediate Release: “Our television budget will enable us to provide services that parents can’t afford and the Office Of Child Support Enforcement may not pay for parents owed child support.”

When Kai Patterson created Project Child Support that provides discounted service, and Custodial Support Foundation, which is a non-profit initiative to provide free services for parents with child support dilemmas, he received cases with serious collection challenges. Unlike most child support cases were noncustodial parents agree to pay their arrears when arrest warrants are issued, he received a critical mass of cases where noncustodial parents refuse to pay. The Office of Child Support Enforcement generally refuses to apprehend parent out of state, and out of the county when warrants are issued. Project Child Support has also received a few cases outside of New York and New Jersey where the in-house legal services could not be provided. These cases presented the challenges of obtaining a law firm in other jurisdictions to provide legal services at the discounted rate provided by the organization’s attorneys. “We have recently entered into an agreement with a service that will acquire attorneys nationwide, but every now and then you get a case with special circumstances, and in a jurisdiction that another law firm will not represent unless they receive a considerable retainer. Even though we had successful cases where we had to prevent a custodial parent form getting evicted until we collect her arrears, another case were we found a noncustodial parent who changed his name and relocated to avoid paying child support, apprehended noncustodial parents and forced settlement, any case we can’t successfully resolve truly bothers me,” says Kai Patterson, who is the CEO of Project Child Support.

Recently, Kai Patterson and Project Child Support has received a $65.5 million dollar televisionseries deal, with a production budget that provides for the payment of services that are needed to collect its clients' unpaid child support. The production budget can enable the company to pay the extradition costs to apprehend parents with arrest warrants in other states, since states will not incur the costs, and most parents cannot afford. Cases with special circumstances that require reasonable retainer fees to service its existing clients in other jurisdictions can now be paid for through our production budget to enable parents to receive the necessary legal services to collect their arrears. “We have provided attorneys with all of the documents, and they have sat on cases, because they could not rack up outrageous legal fees on cases they did not have to prepare the court documents, and only required one day appearance. We have in-house attorneys that have prepared the documents to ensure the terms and conditions needed to collect parents’ arrears were requested from the court. I have a case in California, where three attorneys dropped the client before we undertook the case, and seven attorneys refused to provide legal services because they could not rack up excessive legal fees. We verified the noncustodial parent could afford to pay his arrears, but no firm would take the case,” says Patterson.

Project Child Support will only use its in-house attorneys to service its clients, and no longer accept cases in jurisdictions not supported by its existing network of attorneys. Attorneys will be contracted as “attorneys of counsel” to ensure the proper legal services are provided. This protocol will enable Project Child Support to oversee the legal services attorneys are providing for its clients. “When you run a program that provides charitable and discounted service, you have to realize there are those who only provide services to earn as much as possible, and could care less about a parent’s children. We are going to be very selective in choosing the law firms we use to service our clients. Now we can pay standard retainers from our television-recording budget, and promote the firm instead of asking attorneys to receive the minimal retainer fees. We can now seek extradition orders, and post the fees with the courts to cover the costs of having noncustodial parents with warrants in other states apprehended, plus transport them to the states they owe arrears. States run child support agencies typically don’t pay for these services, and parents can’t afford them, but we can though our television budget. Simply put, the television series can enable our program to provide child support collection services unlike any other privately run organization, and truly help the Office of Child Support Enforcement. We can also recognize our supporters that have believed in our initiative in our series, which will also help them generate revenue. It's a way to show our thanks for those who believed in our initiative,” says Patterson.