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The FALDP Docket --February 2021
February 16, 2021

Florida Association of Legal Document Preparers

The FALDP Docket

Volume 11 Issue 2; February 2021


This is our monthly newsletter. We publish this for the benefit of FALDP members, legal document preparers, and friends. Published monthly since May, 2010

Announcements

Annual Membership Drive

Our regular Annual Membership fee is $75.00. New members and returning members, must complete a Membership Application for our records. The membership fee is half price each year during January and February. Membership @ $37.50 + Avoid UPL Course @ $29.00 = $66.50.

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.

Members who join during our membership drive, must renew their membership (along with all members) no later than July 31 of this year.

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. BUT – we're offering a $50. rebate to anyone who enrolls in the course before the end of February. Your rebate will be issued the day after you submit payment. 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

Our recent Team Building Wednesday Zoom Webinar was fun and engaging. Members discussed their business goals, and how they got started. These are set for the second Wednesday of each month at 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm EST.

Our next training webinar is on Saturday February 27 at 11:00 am EST. The topic is Child Support. Members please bring your questions and your knowledge. Invitations will go out on the 22nd or 23rd of February. Please make sure our invitations are not going to spam. Add faldp2010@gmail to your email address book.

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:

Four Things to love about the legal document preparation industry:

  • There is always more to learn. More to learn about documents, more to learn about business, more to learn about human nature. As long as we can continue to learn, we continue to grow.

  • Document preparers help people AND get paid for it. Our customers are grateful that we exist. Grateful that we are affordable. And grateful that we strive to reach an unexpected level of knowledge and customer service.

  • Our businesses are perfect candidates to operate online. Although not all operate their businesses solely online, there is plenty of opportunity to do so. Online is an efficient and cost effective way to run a document preparation business. Our customers appreciate that they do not need to take time off work to go to an office. Especially during this pandemic, the lack of need for face to face interaction is a huge plus.

  • There is high demand for our services. People will always have disputes; get divorced; file bankruptcy; and have need of the myriad of other services that document preparers can help with.

    • New Mark

    We're developing a new logo ... what do you think? This would be in addition to (an alternative to) our existing 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.

    Check out our videos here - FALDP on YouTube

    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.

    Don't have a site yet? Try Monarch Web Strategies

    Horizon Research Network is one of our associated sites which includes our design services. We build business websites for FALDP members for only $500, which includes your domain name and first month's hosting. And, have you seen our whiteboard videos online? We can create a custom whiteboard video to promote your business. Once built its yours to use in any of your advertising or promotions. Contact us for a custom quote.

    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?

    We accept member's announcements and appreciate your contributions. If you have an announcement about your business, an expansion of services, moving your offices, or winning awards, please send us the information and we'll include it in our newsletter. Your announcement needs to be pertinent to your business. We are unable to include announcements about other trade associations, clubs or groups.

    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.

    FALDP Contact Information:
    Main number – (941)237-0951
    Toll free - (800)515-0496
    Email – staff@faldp.org

    PLEASE LINK YOUR SITE TO WWW.FALDP.ORG
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