From 1996 and within the past 20 years, there have been very significant changes in the uniform
laws addressing both interstate child support and interstate custody and visitation issues. Perhaps
one of the most critical laws that every family law attorney must know: the Uniform Interstate
Family Support Act (UIFSA), now enacted in all jurisdictions — 755 ILCS 22/100 et. seq.; and
the Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act (FFCCSOA), 28 U.S.C. § 1738B enacted
in 1994 and amended in 1996. The most important of these Acts for the family lawyer to know
as to jurisdictional issues is the UIFSA, which was comprehensively amended in 2001 with more
recent additional amendments in 2008 (with the 2008 amendments being to comport with
requirements of the Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other
Forms of Family Maintenance “Hague Treaty”).
