32 W. Randolph, 15th Floor

I attended an administrative hearing yesterday before the IL Dept. of Healthcare and Family Services (IDHFS) at the above yesterday. You've got to go there to see jurisprudence and due process at its finest. The 15th Floor deals with cases where IDHFS has frozen assets of non-custodial parents (NCP) who owe back child support arrearages.

So first our case was scheduled at 1015am and we didn't get called until 230pm. I'm there w/o my client who's out-of-state and the non-custodial-parent is there having appealed an account of his that had been frozen. He alleged that it was a "convenience" account and that the funds were his mother's. Then when your case gets called you go into a pre-hearing with an IDHFS advocate (who opposes the NCP). And it's laughable...the NCP doesn't realize that this person really is his opposition and yet this individual is actually advising the NCP. Next, we go into a hearing. We're on the record with an old cassette player as transcriber and a non-lawyer as hearing officer. It's kangaroo court at it's finest.