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27 verbatim mandatory provisions from AO 2006-36 Child Support Enforcement Hearing Officers.
First Judicial Circuit. Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
Verbatim from the order's own text layer, harvested 2026-07-24; whitespace normalised only. No OCR was used. Only sentences containing mandatory language (shall, must, may not, no later than, within N) are reproduced — the full document is in custody and is the controlling text. • Child Support Enforcement Hearing Officers (“hearing officers”) shall serve under the direction of the Chief Judge. • All cases filed or pending in Escambia County, Okaloosa County, Santa Rosa County, and Walton County which are certified by the Department of Revenue to be cases in which Title IV-D of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 651, et. seq.) and The Florida Child Support Enforcement Act (§ 409.2551, et. seq., Florida Statutes) apply, including so-called public-assistance, non-assistance and URESA cases, shall be referred by the respective clerks of court to the hearing officer for establishment, enforcement, or modification of support. -- 1 of 4 -- 2. • Cases referred to the hearing officer shall be scheduled for hearing in an expeditious manner consistent with due process requirements and the discovery needs of the parties. 3. • All preliminary motions shall be heard by the hearing officer, who shall rule thereon. • Any party or his or her counsel who objects to the ruling of the hearing officer shall file a notice of objection with the circuit judge to whom the case is assigned within ten (10) days of such ruling by the hearing officer, if such ruling is in writing, or within ten (10) days of entry of the recommended order by the circuit judge. 4. • All evidentiary and other objections made by a party or a party’s counsel at a hearing conducted by the hearing officer shall be considered by the hearing officer, who shall rule thereon, subject to exception by a party or his or her counsel noted in the record at the time of the ruling, which exception shall be considered by the circuit judge only upon the filing of a motion to vacate the recommended order. 5. • The clerks of the court shall issue process and subpoenas at the request of the parties or at the direction of the hearing officer. 6. • The attorney for the Department of Revenue, or counsel for an opposing party, or an opposing party shall schedule cases for hearing after consultation with the hearing officer, and shall give notice thereof to all parties as required by law. 7. • All testimony at hearings conducted by the hearing officer shall be recorded by electronic means, which recordings shall be maintained by Court Administration or its agents or employees, or, in the case of Okaloosa County and Walton County, recordings may be maintained in the court file which is maintained in the possession of the Clerks of the Court. • Transcription of such proceedings shall be at the expense of the party requesting, except that transcription of such proceedings requested by the hearing officer or the circuit judge shall be at the expense of Court Administration, First Judicial Circuit. 8. • Any party to a hearing before the hearing officer may have the proceeding reported by a court reporter, but it shall be the responsibility of such party to arrange for the attendance of the court reporter at the hearing. • The party retaining the court reporter shall be responsible for payment to said court reporter. 9. • The hearing officer shall be empowered to issue process, administer oaths, require the production of documents, and conduct hearings for the purpose of taking evidence. • The hearing officer shall take testimony and establish a record in all proceedings before the hearing officer, and shall accept voluntary acknowledgments of paternity and support liability and stipulated agreements setting the amount of support to be paid. • Additionally, the hearing officer shall evaluate the evidence and promptly make a recommended order. • Such order shall include findings of fact to the circuit court for the establishment, enforcement, or modification of a support obligation. -- 2 of 4 -- 10. • The hearing officer shall promptly submit a recommended order to the circuit judge to whom the case is assigned, along with any exceptions to rulings made by the hearing officer on evidentiary matters. 11. • Upon receipt of a recommended order, the assigned circuit judge shall review the recommended order and any exceptions to rulings on evidentiary matters. • The circuit judge shall enter the order unless good cause appears to amend the order or further proceedings appear to be necessary. • Upon entry of the order by the circuit judge, the clerk of the court shall provide conformed copies of the order to the parties or their counsel. 13. • Any party may file a cross-motion to vacate within five (5) days of service of a motion to vacate, provided, however, that the filing of a cross-motion to vacate shall not delay the hearing on the motion to vacate unless good cause is shown. • A motion to vacate the order shall be heard by the circuit judge within ten (10) days after the movant applies for a hearing on the motion. 14. • If the hearing officer has a conflict of interest in a case, unless the parties after disclosure of the conflict of interest waive their right to recusal of the hearing officer, or if such other ground for recusal of the hearing officer exists, the hearing officer shall recuse himself/herself from the case and refer the matter to the circuit judge to whom it is assigned for further proceedings. 16. • Any procedural issue arising from the operation of the child support hearing officer system not covered by this Administrative Order, and the Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure or the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure shall be determined by the assigned circuit judge. 17. • Therefore, cases within the scope of Title IV-D and the Florida Child Support Enforcement Act shall not be subjected to sanctions for the parties’ failure to comply with the automatic disclosure requirements of Rule 12.295, except that all parties shall submit financial affidavits as required by the Rule. • This order shall have no effect on the parties’ ability or obligations to initiate or respond to discovery as provided in the rules. -- 3 of 4 -- 18. • The hearing officer shall make copies of this Administrative Order available to all parties and counsel for parties appearing before him or her. 19.
Child Support Enforcement Hearing Officers (“hearing officers”) shall serve under the direction of the Chief Judge.
Reviewer note: Document sha256: 16a0cd464eb3c6c836527d202ac442f178a5c34d3e745800396329f1656ea2f3 (120314 bytes). BenchPath harvested this circuit itself because no research corpus existed for it. Extraction is conservative: mandatory-language sentences only, so this rule is a faithful subset of the order, never a summary of it.
Every party setting a hearing in Division AO must first confer in a good-faith effort to resolve the matter, and every hearing notice must include a certificate of that conferral. The division instructions state that conferral requires counsel to actually talk.
Under the 2025 case-management amendments, a movant must confer with the opposing party in a good-faith effort to resolve a nondispositive motion before filing it, and must include a certificate of conferral.
CV-E layers a second conferral on top of Rule 1.202: certify conferral before filing the motion (Exhibit A) and again before scheduling it for hearing (Exhibit B).