Special Reports

(WCCO) Breaking up can be hard to do, but divorce can be downright painful. Chris Banas, a family law attorney at the firm of Hellmuth & Johnson in the Twin Cities, should know.

"Divorce is emotional, custody battles are emotional. When you mix the facts with the case, when you're talking about dollars and children, it's emotional," said Banas, one of Minnesota Law & Politics' "Rising Stars" picks of the year.

Banas said for every one of his male clients that feels he got a raw deal, he works with a female client who feels cheated as well.

"I've seen both sides," he said.

There's little argument that, until recently, Minnesota divorce laws were not very progressive when compared to the rest of the nation.

"The perception was there, and continues to be there, that men will not get a fair shake in court," said Banas.

Minnesota was one of only a handful of states that did not consider both parents' incomes when it came to determining child support payments. Banas explained how the old system worked.

"The great majority of cases were just applied with the numbers. 'How many children do you have? What is the label of physical custody?' And it's a graph, it was based on a percentage of the non-custodial parents' net income and there was the number, and that was it," he said. "Take it or leave it, like it or not."

Tom Neuville changed all that. Then a Republican senator from Northfield, Minn. and now a Rice County district court judge, Neuville was the chief author of the new law. He said getting the law changed was difficult.

"Responding to all the concerns that all the different interest groups had ... that was quite a struggle. It took three years to pass this law," he said.

The new law took effect just over a year ago in January 2007. One of the law's two major new features is that both parents' incomes are now considered to determine child support.

"That in and of itself is a revolutionary change with respect to Minnesota and how they've approached child support," said Banas.

It's also a change that should help men. Right now, women make up the vast majority of divorced parents that have custody of children in Minnesota. That means men make up the majority of non-custodial parents, nearly 89 percent according to a number provided by the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Only about 11 percent of divorced women pay child support.

Last year, the state Department of Human Services collected over $600 million in child support, money the state agency then redistributes to the proper parent.

"The new system is really a way of saying the two parents are still the two people responsible for supporting this child. So we look at the whole of their income then we figure out the right share for each parent to be paying," said Chuck Johnson, the department's assistant commissioner for children and family services.

Which brings us to the second major feature of the new law: determining how much each parent pays. Because of this, there is no longer an incentive to fight to get the label of custody. It encourages a system where children can spend more time with both parents.

"Mothers were not willing to give fathers time with their kids because if they did they lost money," said Neuville. "Well, now they won't. So dads can get more time with the kids now."

A Web-based calculator now considers how much each parent earns, the costs to raise a child and the percentage of time each parent spends with the kids in determining the child support payment.

Neither the system nor the new calculator are perfect, and there were compromises made to the bill before it became law. Still Banas, who worked for years under the old law, said "the overall consensus is that it is a good change."

But is it really working? The people who enforce the law say it is simply too soon to tell.

"We haven't started to see the big numbers switching over from the old guidelines to the new guidelines. It will take some time for that to happen," said Johnson.

One thing everyone we spoke with agreed on the importance of trying to settle your differences without having to step in front of a judge.

"The courtroom is a last resort. There is no guarantee what the judge is going to do," said Banas.

"If you can stay out of court and if the two parents can work things out, it's always better," agreed Neuville.

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