The FALDP Docket

Volume 11 Issue 3; March 2021

Announcements

Membership

Our Annual Membership Drive ended on February 28, and our membership fee is back to the regular amount - $104. But, new members who join in March onward will not need to renew until July 31, 2022 at the latest.

Please note, we now require completion of an Entrance Exam prior to submitting your application. This applies to new and returning members.

Take the Entrance Exam, and submit payment and your application on our premium-membership.html page.

Attention current members - this is NOT membership renewal. This is for new and returning members only. Returning members are former members, whose membership has lapsed for 30 days or more.

New Course - Preparing Child Support Documents

We have rolled out our latest course – Preparing Florida Child Support Documents. Tuition is $274. You do not need to be an FALDP member to take our courses. Register here Online-Courses.html,

Here is the course outline:
I. Overview:
In this training course, learn the information and methods that go into calculating child support, child support modification, and child support enforcement.
II. Scenarios
Read about real life scenarios and how child support affects people's lives. Conscientious attention and vigilance is the only way for two parents who are no longer a couple to financially support their children. 
III. Initiating Child Support
Most commonly child support is initiated at time of divorce. Sometimes when parents were never married one or the other parent initiates a Paternity Action and a child support order is put into place at that time. In other instances, a single mother requests assistance in initiating child support from the Department of Revenue.
IV. Child Support Payments
Child support should be calculated so that both parents financially support their children. This is the intent of public policy and the reason that Florida has put into place a formal process to calculate child support. Learn about the process, and how to calculate child support using the Child Support Guidelines Worksheet.
V. Modification
You'll learn how and when parents can request a change in the child support amount they owe, or the amount paid to them in the child's behalf. 
VI. Child Support Enforcement
Pro se litigants are frequently unaware of the steps they can take to enforce child support payments. Document preparers can assist in the process by providing legal information, explaining procedure, and preparing documents.
VII. Forms:
The forms needed to prepare documents for child support calculation, modification, and enforcement are included in this course.

Webinars

Saturday, March 27th at 11:00 a.m. EST. Whether you are a long time member or recently joined, you shouldn't miss this Zoom Meeting. We offer all kinds of benefits and add more as we can. Take full advantage of all that your membership includes. Join Us. Invitations will go out to all members the week prior to the 27th. If you are a current member and do not receive an invitation, please contact us at faldp2010@gmail.com. See you there!

And check this page - training-webinars.html for updates. If you have a request or question about our webinars, call or email us. staff@faldp.org or 800-515-0496. See you there!

Featured Article:

It's not what you know – its who you know that knows what you don't know. Within our association we have a lot of people with a lot of knowledge. I know I can ask someone what to do when I get stuck. Sometimes there are multiple people that might know the answer. In general, I have certain members that I ask certain types of questions. I challenge all of our members to become the go to person on one or more subjects or processes.

Since we founded this association, I have stressed the idea that we are all colleagues before we are competitors. There is plenty of business to go around. Consumers will never stop needing documents for their various goals, and consumers are not all suddenly going to understand how to prepare those documents without the assistance of a document preparer. I encourage members to help one another, and I fully support a culture of collaboration within our membership.

Many years ago, I had a sales job at a generic pharmaceutical company. We sold generic drugs to independent pharmacies up and down the eastern seaboard. My territory was all in New York, sorted by area code (we sold on the phone). If I remember correctly, I had 212 and 518, and maybe one more. I was assigned the territory when I first started, and only later found out that no other sales reps had done very well in this territory. For some reason, I thrived. I consistently opened more new accounts than any other sales rep in the room. There were around 40 salespeople there. I was named the New Account Queen, and the other salespeople looked to me for ways to make their first sale to a pharmacist and with that first sale -- open a new account.

Other salespeople carved out their own specialties. One of my colleagues was whiz bang at identifying pills. People would call and say they found a pill and describe it, and my colleague would identify it. Sometimes it would be a pill found in a teenager's backpack, and a worried mom wanted to know what her child had gotten hold of. This knowledge didn't help her sales, but it definitely created good will from the community.

Another of my colleagues was well versed on knowing what medications were generally prescribed together. Knowing this, you could do the suggestive selling – like did you want fries with that? Finding pharmacists who filled a lot of prescriptions for maintenance drugs, was always the best.

Almost every sales rep in the room, distinguished himself by excelling in at least one aspect of the job and became the go to person for that knowledge. I challenge each of our members to do the same. And, let other members know. There are a lot of things I don't know about document preparation and procedure. No one person can know it all. But, if we each continually strive to educate ourselves, and provide our knowledge to our colleagues – we all benefit.

So … what knowledge do you have, that many others might not? Can you make yourself the go to person on a certain subject or process?

New Mark

You can share our videos & articles!

We have a growing list of videos on our channel. They're all about different aspects of document preparation, branded with the FALDP logo and information. Members are invited to use our videos on their sites, online ads, or on social media. Depending on where you display, you can share from YouTube, by using the share link or embed code.

For example, on your own business FB page, you could share one of our divorce videos, and above it simply state that you are an FALDP member, and you prepare documents for divorce.

And, FALDP members are also invited to use content from our blog on their site and social media. Check out our searchable blog on Legal Sunshine Please remember to give proper attribution. Almost all blog articles were written by Ruth Tick, a few are guest posts. Excerpts are allowed, as some of the articles are very long. Be sure to state that this is an excerpt of ...

Spanish Parenting Course Now Available

The Spanish version of the Parenting Course, offered through our sister company, Horizon Research Network, LLC, has been approved by DCF. We received notification of its approval on October 9th.

Prices are the same as our English version. $29.99 and $14.99 for low income. Here's the link directly to the Spanish version - spanish parenting course The Spanish version is also displayed on our FALDP site, and can be accessed by going to the English version.

Parenting Course

Parental Education and Family Stabilization Course is mandatory for all divorcing couples who have children; and all people seeking a paternity action. The cost is $29.99 and $14.99 for indigent. Here's the link directly to the - Parenting Course

Reminders

Business presence in Florida - Members who are not physically in Florida are required to maintain a business presence in Florida. This means if you are physically located out of state, you must either form a Florida corporation or Florida LLC, or register as a foreign entity.

If you operate your business as an LLC, you should have already received a renewal notice from the Florida Division of Corporations. You must renew no later than May, or incur a penalty.

Make sure you've taken the Avoid UPL! course prior to renewal of your FALDP membership, and since August of 2019. Although our renewal period does not begin until April, we suggest that you complete the course now (if you haven't done so this year already), so that your membership renewal is not delayed for your failure to complete this course.

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FALDP Private Facebook Group

About one third of our membership has joined the FALDP private Facebook group. We created it to make it easier to interact with each other. So far, people have given work referrals to one another; asked questions to the group; received help in locating a form; and discussed various issues. If you're working toward FALDP Certification, you earn one CEU just by joining the group. So, what are you waiting for? Look for the private group after going to the official FALDP Facebook page at FALDP,LLC on Facebook.

Member's Announcements & Contributions

Have something to share?

If you would like to write an article, editorial, opinion piece, or web page please let us know. We are always in need of fresh information and insights.