Fam. Code, § 3557 · Chapter 2. General Provisions
Fam. Code, § 3557
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, absent good cause to the contrary, the court, in order to ensure that each party has access to legal representation to preserve each party’s rights, upon determining (1) an award of attorney’s fees and cost under this section is appropriate, (2) there is a disparity in access to funds to retain counsel, and (3) one party is able to pay for legal representation for both parties, shall award reasonable attorney’s fees to any of the following persons:
(1) A custodial parent or other person to whom payments should be made in any action to enforce any of the following:
(A) An existing order for child support.
(B) A penalty incurred pursuant to Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 4720) of Part 5 of Division 9.
(2) A supported spouse in an action to enforce an existing order for spousal support.
(b) This section shall not be construed to allow an award of attorney’s fees to or against a governmental entity.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2010, Ch. 352, Sec. 17. (AB 939) Effective January 1, 2011.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAM§ionNum=3557.
- Text hash
- sha256 d830bac94191964db11cea39ab018a616ac70402c922d4c83a184b4a9a17599e
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
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