ABSTRACT
The development of support guidelines, as one example of the process of reforming substantive law in a more-rule like direction, is a complex mixture of theory and practice, substance and process. Child support has come to be viewed as an important part of the response both to the economic disadvantage experienced by children in single-parent families and to the growing costs of state support to such families. The guideline models developed in the American context have to a large extent provided the framework and starting point for the development of child support guidelines in other common law jurisdictions. The experience with child support guidelines in the common law world has admittedly been more positive in some jurisdictions than in others. The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines are a set of informal, advisory guidelines with national scope intended to assist in the determination of the amount and duration of spousal support under the federal Divorce Act.
