Startup Idea: Software Solution for Custody and Visitation Violation Documentation

Startup idea to develop a software tool that allows divorced parents to document and report violations of custody/visitation orders directly to court jurisdiction, thus bypassing the usual costly legal proceedings. The software would allow attachments as evidence and store original orders.

As a divorced mother of four, I frequently run into a problem wherein my ex-husband violates an order of the court regarding custody and visitation, but I lack the ability to enforce it due to the State viewing custody/visitation as a civil matter and NOT the criminal matter that it is (a violated court order being a criminal offense no matter which side of the court system the order was issued from). Because law enforcement hates getting involved in civil matters, I often wish there was software to document and support the infringement that would go directly to the judge with jurisdiction in the proceedings. Otherwise, a family court order isn't worth the paper it's printed on. It costs a minimum of $1500 to put an attorney on retainer to file a motion to enforce. If courts adopted this sort of software program, imagine the difference it would make in the lives of children and parents who can't afford to stand up for themselves in court. There aren't many products that help with this sort of thing. There's softward called "Family Wizard" but the courts don't like it because it won't allow the attachment of evidence or store the original orders. As a parent, I'd gladly pay $100 to have a system in place to log the ways in which my ex violates our order.

I've tried to find solutions for eight years. I've read family law texts (which allow for such software to exist) and if I had the coding experience, I would develop something. There's no solution to this problem at this point unless you have thousands of dollars to spare.

Submitter: Chris (view contact info).