The Price of Your Child: How Family Court Became a Billion-Dollar Industry
“Follow the money.”
It’s an old investigative mantra—and when it comes to family court, it explains everything.
Family court was never supposed to be an industry. It was meant to resolve private family disputes with fairness, compassion, and justice. Instead, it has become a profit-driven machine—one that feeds off prolonged conflict, financial desperation, and the suffering of children and parents alike.
This isn’t a glitch in the system. It is the system.
Conflict Is Currency
The longer your case drags on, the more everyone gets paid—except you.
Every motion, every hearing, every court-mandated service is a billable opportunity. Lawyers charge hundreds per hour. Guardians ad litem and custody evaluators rake in thousands. Mediators, visitation supervisors, parenting coordinators—each one adds another financial weight to your chest.
Family court does not incentivize resolution. It profits from chaos.
If two parents cooperate and co-parent peacefully, the system loses a customer. But if one parent starts a war—especially a parent with more resources—they feed the machine. And the court rewards them.
Title IV-D: The Federal Cash Pipeline
Most people have never heard of Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. But it’s the financial backbone of the family court system.
Under IV-D, state courts are reimbursed by the federal government for every dollar they collect and enforce in child support. That’s right—courts make money from creating and enforcing child support orders.
Let that sink in:
The court gets paid when it separates you from your child and imposes a support obligation.
It’s not about fairness. It’s not about need. It’s about maximizing collections and inflating enforcement numbers. The more noncustodial parents they can create—especially fathers—the more federal dollars they receive.
In many jurisdictions, child support enforcement agencies operate out of the same courthouse and share the same data systems. The goal isn’t family wellness—it’s financial extraction.
Court-Appointed Cash Cows
Judges often appoint their favorite attorneys and evaluators to cases again and again. These appointments are lucrative—$150/hour for a GAL, $5,000 custody evaluations, $200 supervised visits.
It’s a closed referral network where loyalty matters more than qualifications. Parents have little say in who gets appointed, and even less power to remove them. Conflicts of interest are rampant. Some judges even rotate into these private roles after retirement—making money from the same courtrooms they once presided over.
It’s legalized nepotism.
Mediation Mills and ADR Mandates
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) sounds friendly, doesn’t it? Mediation, settlement conferences, parenting classes. But in family court, ADR has become another arm of the machine.
Mediation is often mandatory, even in high-conflict or abuse cases. And it’s not always neutral. Courts contract with “approved” providers, and parents are forced to pay out-of-pocket. Refuse to comply? You risk being labeled uncooperative.
Meanwhile, many of these mediators are former judges or attorneys who profit from their insider access. It’s not justice—it’s franchising.
You Can’t Afford to Fight—But You Can’t Afford Not To
Family court deliberately wears you down. Many parents spend tens of thousands of dollars over years just to preserve basic access to their child.
If you can't afford to keep up? You lose by default.
If you speak up about the financial abuse? You're accused of being combative.
If you cry in court about being broke? You're told to get another job.
And even if you win—which many never do—the financial scars are permanent. Credit cards maxed out. Homes lost. Careers derailed. Mental health shattered.
The Financial Destruction Is the Point
It’s not just about making money. It’s about controlling parents through economic coercion.
You’re more compliant when you’re afraid of going to jail for nonpayment.
You’re less likely to appeal when you can’t afford transcripts or attorneys.
You’re easier to marginalize when your entire life revolves around surviving, not fighting back.
This is systemic financial abuse. And it’s all done under the banner of “the child’s best interest.”
Who Profits?
Judges (through referrals, retirement gigs, and court-connected networks)
Attorneys (on both sides, whether you’re plaintiff or defendant)
GALs and custody evaluators (frequently court-appointed, rarely held accountable)
Mediators and supervised visitation centers
State agencies (through Title IV-D reimbursements)
And who pays?
You do.
With your money.
With your time.
With your mental health.
With your child.
What Needs to Change
End Title IV-D financial incentives tied to custody and support outcomes
Ban mandatory ADR in high-conflict or abuse cases
Create transparency around court appointments and financial disclosures
Provide public audits of family court funding, billing, and appointment systems
Guarantee access to legal aid or court-appointed counsel in custody cases
Family court is not a neutral space. It is a marketplace where children are currency, conflict is profit, and justice is pay-to-play.
Until the financial engine is dismantled, no family is safe.
Up Next in the Series:
Judges for Sale: The Quiet Power of ADR and the Revolving Door
Author Bio:
Michael Phillips is the founder of Father & Co. and the REBUILT Justice Project. He writes about family court corruption, parental alienation, and the trauma inflicted by unchecked judicial power. His investigative journalism focuses on giving a voice to the erased and the unheard.
Well said and written! This article SAYS IT ALL! The taxpayer must be made aware of these illegitimate courts and SS monies into Title IV-D!
I read “The Price of Your Child” with my stomach in knots—not because I disagreed, but because I lived every word of it.
What happens when the parent weaponizing the system for profit also gets a job inside the very institution responsible for safeguarding the child?
That’s my reality.
The mother of my children works at the elementary school our daughter attends. She sits in meetings, speaks to administrators, walks the same halls as the social workers and psychologists trained to notice signs of distress in children. And yet—they say nothing.
Not when my daughter hides during transitions.
Not when she says “I don’t know” to every question.
Not when I’m kept out of her education and emotionally erased from her life.
They look the other way. Because she’s one of them.
When a malignant parent gains positional authority inside a school, she no longer needs to gatekeep by shouting. She simply smiles in the staff lounge while quietly feeding a narrative that the other parent is unstable, dangerous, or unworthy.
And the system? It eats it up.
Because conflict pays.
Because alienation is billable.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I’m a United States Marine Corps veteran, a father who used to DJ school dances and run fundraisers. But now? The doors lock behind me when I walk into school. Staff literally hide in rooms. And my own daughter has learned that asking about Dad gets her punished with silence.
If you want to know the true price of a child, it’s this:
A school district willing to stay silent when a colleague manipulates her child.
A court system that says, "Just pay what she says you owe" even when it violates the law.
A family support apparatus that punishes the parent offering free childcare, because the for-profit daycare submitted a reimbursement invoice.
And worst of all?
A seven-year-old girl, told in a hundred unspoken ways, that loving both parents is disloyal.
This isn’t just about my rights. This is about Emelia.
This is about Sage.
This is about every child caught in a system where love is rationed out like a contract dispute and one parent is assigned the role of "problem" to keep the invoices flowing.
So to every judge, educator, attorney, therapist, and policymaker reading this:
You know what’s happening.
You know “high conflict” is often a cover word for coercive control.
You know silence makes you complicit.
And to every father, mother, or child who’s felt erased by this billion-dollar game:
You are not alone.
Your pain is real.
And this fight is just getting started.