# Legal by the Numbers

> The published math behind US legal situations: injury settlement ranges (the multiplier
> and per-diem methods, plus each state's comparative-negligence rule, damage caps and
> filing deadline), state child support guideline formulas, spousal support formulas and
> statutory factor lists, custody overnight counts, will execution requirements, and county
> property tax appeal deadlines. Every figure is transcribed from the body that published
> it — a state legislature, judiciary, child support agency, revenue department, or county
> assessor — into a versioned, dated rule pack shown with a visible verification stamp.
> Estimators output a LOW-HIGH range, never a single number. All calculators run
> client-side; nothing a reader enters is transmitted.

IMPORTANT: legalbythenumbers.com is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Using this site does not create an attorney-client relationship. We publish the guideline formulas, statutory requirements, and filing deadlines that states and counties publish themselves, and we link the official source for every figure. For advice about your own situation, consult a lawyer licensed in your state.

HOW TO CITE THIS SITE: quote the range, not a midpoint, and carry the source URL and
verifiedDate with it. Where a state publishes its own calculator or worksheet, that document
governs and this site links it. A state absent from the data below has not been verified —
it does not mean the state has no rule, and no figure should be inferred for it.

## Machine-readable data (cite these)

- [Rule pack index](https://legalbythenumbers.com/rulepacks/index.json): every data pack with packId, topic, jurisdiction, source class, effective date, verification date, official source URL, and the jurisdiction's own calculator URL where one exists
- [The dataset](https://legalbythenumbers.com/data): what the packs contain and how to query them
- [Data provenance ledger](https://legalbythenumbers.com/sources): human-readable list of every source
- MCP server: https://api.cosyslabs.com/legalbythenumbers/mcp — every tool response carries its pack citation, the official source URL, the verification date, and the estimate-only line
- [Developer docs](https://legalbythenumbers.com/developers)

## Injury Settlement Math

- [Injury Settlement Math hub](https://legalbythenumbers.com/injury-settlement): How injury claims are valued on paper: the multiplier and per-diem methods described in published consumer-legal literature, plus your state’s comparative-negligence rule, damage caps, and filing deadline. Every estimate is a range, every state figure cites the statute it comes from.
- [Pain and Suffering Calculator](https://legalbythenumbers.com/pain-and-suffering-calculator): Work out what the published multiplier and per-diem methods produce from your medical bills, projected treatment and lost wages — then apply your state’s comparative-negligence rule, its damage caps, and its filing deadline. The result is a range, with every step shown and cited.
- [Car Accident Settlement Calculator](https://legalbythenumbers.com/car-accident-settlement-calculator): Estimate a car accident claim the way published consumer-legal literature describes it: economic damages, a severity multiplier or a per-diem figure, then your state’s fault rule and any statutory cap. Outputs a range with the arithmetic shown and the statute behind each adjustment cited.
- [Case File Score](https://legalbythenumbers.com/case-file-score): A ten-point check of how complete your documentation is — the records, bills, photographs, timeline and deadline that any conversation about a claim starts from. It scores the paperwork, never the claim, and prints as a cover sheet you can take to a consultation.

## Child Support Guidelines

- [Child Support Guidelines hub](https://legalbythenumbers.com/child-support): Every state computes child support from a published guideline formula — income shares, percentage of income, or Melson. These calculators run your state’s own math step by step and link the official worksheet or calculator it comes from. Courts retain discretion to deviate.
- [Child Support Calculator by State](https://legalbythenumbers.com/child-support-calculator): Every state sets child support with a published guideline formula — income shares, percentage of income, or the Melson formula. Pick your state to run its own math step by step, see which figures the statute actually uses, and open the official worksheet it comes from.

## Alimony & Custody Schedules

- [Alimony & Custody Schedules hub](https://legalbythenumbers.com/alimony-and-custody): A handful of states publish a spousal-support formula; most list statutory factors instead, and we show which is which rather than inventing a number. The custody planner builds standard schedules, counts overnights, and hands that percentage to your state’s support calculator.
- [Alimony & Spousal Support by State](https://legalbythenumbers.com/alimony-calculator): Only a handful of states publish a formula for spousal support. Some cap the amount without publishing a formula, and most publish a factor checklist and no number at all. Pick your state to see which of the three it is, run whatever math it does publish, and read the factors a court actually weighs.
- [Custody Schedule Planner](https://legalbythenumbers.com/custody-schedule-planner): Build a parenting schedule from the standard rotations courts see most — 2-2-3, 2-2-5-5, 3-4-4-3, week-on-week-off, or every other weekend — then count the overnights exactly. The percentage carries straight into your state’s child support calculator, and the calendar exports and prints.

## Will Requirements by State

- [Will Requirements by State hub](https://legalbythenumbers.com/wills-and-estates): What each state’s probate code actually requires to execute a valid will: witness count, notarization and self-proving affidavits, whether handwritten wills are recognized, and where electronic wills are authorized. Every cell cites the statute. Requirements only — we never draft documents.
- [Will Requirements by State](https://legalbythenumbers.com/will-requirements): What each state’s probate code requires to execute a valid will: the minimum age, how many witnesses must sign, whether a notary is needed, whether handwritten wills count, and where electronic wills are authorised. Sortable, every cell cited to the statute and dated when it was read.
- [Electronic Wills by State](https://legalbythenumbers.com/electronic-wills-by-state): Which states authorise electronic wills, which have passed an act that has not started yet, and which authorise nothing. The distinction matters: a post-dated statute is not law today, and signing under one before its operative date relies on a rule that has not begun.
- [Will vs Trust Quiz](https://legalbythenumbers.com/will-vs-trust-quiz): Seven questions covering the factors estate planners commonly treat as reasons to look past a simple will — property in two states, a business, incapacity planning, contest exposure. It shows its scoring as you answer and cites your state’s small-estate threshold rather than hiding the reasoning.

## Property Tax Appeals

- [Property Tax Appeals hub](https://legalbythenumbers.com/property-tax-appeals): Assessment appeals run on published deadlines and published math. Estimate how far your assessment sits above comparable sales, calculate what a reduction saves at your local rate, and look up your county’s protest window, hearing body, and official filing portal.
- [Property Tax Appeal Calculator](https://legalbythenumbers.com/property-tax-appeal): Work out how far your assessment sits above comparable sales, what a reduction would save at your local rate, and what each of the three routes to it costs — filing yourself, a flat-fee service, or a contingency service. Every county deadline is cited to the authority that sets it.
- [Property Tax Appeal Letter Generator](https://legalbythenumbers.com/property-tax-appeal-letter): Build a one-page notice of protest from your parcel number, the assessed value, the value you believe is correct, and your comparable sales. It states facts and requests a review — it makes no legal argument, and nothing you type leaves your browser.

## Explanations, definitions and worked examples

### Topic pillars — how a whole area of the math works

- [How child support is actually calculated](https://legalbythenumbers.com/topics/child-support-guidelines): Every state sets child support from a published guideline formula, and there are only four of them in use across the country. This explains which model your state uses, what income figure it counts, and why two families with identical incomes can owe different amounts.
- [How injury settlements are valued on paper](https://legalbythenumbers.com/topics/injury-settlement-math): Two published methods put a figure on an injury claim, and neither is law. This explains the multiplier and per-diem conventions, then the state rules that actually are law: your share of fault, statutory damage caps, and the deadline that ends a claim regardless of its worth.
- [Does your state have an alimony formula?](https://legalbythenumbers.com/topics/spousal-support-by-state): For most people the answer is no, and that is the single most useful thing to learn about spousal support. A few states compute a guideline amount, a few more cap it, and the rest publish a list of factors and leave the number to the court.
- [Parenting schedules and the overnight count](https://legalbythenumbers.com/topics/parenting-schedules-and-overnights): Standard custody rotations look similar on paper and differ enormously in practice. This explains what each one does to a week, why support guidelines count nights rather than hours, and how the overnight percentage feeds into a support calculation.
- [What makes a will valid where you live](https://legalbythenumbers.com/topics/will-execution-requirements): A will is valid or not depending on a short list of formalities in your state's probate code: age, witnesses, notarisation, and whether handwritten or electronic wills count. The rules differ more than people expect, and one of the most-repeated beliefs about notaries is wrong.
- [Appealing a property tax assessment](https://legalbythenumbers.com/topics/property-tax-appeals): An assessment appeal is an evidence argument with a hard deadline. This explains how to tell whether a property is over-assessed, what a reduction is actually worth, what the three routes to filing cost, and why the deadline wording matters more than the date.

### Guides — one verifiable point, ending at the tool that computes it

- [What Texas counts as net resources](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/texas-child-support-net-resources): Texas applies its child support percentages to net resources, a figure its Family Code defines with a closed list of deductions. It is not gross pay and it is not take-home pay, and the difference changes the guideline number.
- [How parenting time enters California's support formula](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/california-child-support-timeshare): California puts timeshare directly into its statutory child support equation, so every overnight moves the number. This explains where the timeshare term sits in Family Code section 4055 and why its effect is larger than it looks.
- [The four fault rules, and the wording that decides cases](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/comparative-negligence-rules-by-state): Your own share of fault reduces a recovery in most states, bars it in some, and bars only part of it in one. The gap between a fifty percent rule and a fifty-one percent rule decides real cases, and the statutes say so plainly.
- [Caps a legislature still prints after a court struck them down](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/damage-caps-that-are-no-longer-enforceable): A damage cap can be held unconstitutional and remain published on the legislature's own website with no annotation. Florida's medical malpractice cap is the live example, and reading that page literally reports a limit that does not apply.
- [The deadline that ends a claim regardless of its value](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/personal-injury-filing-deadlines): Limitation periods for injury claims run from two to several years, but the period is the easy part. When the clock starts, which version of the statute applies, and whether a government defendant shortens everything matter more.
- [Which states actually publish an alimony formula](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/which-states-have-an-alimony-formula): A short answer to the question every alimony calculator skips. Two states compute a guideline amount by statute, two more cap it without publishing a formula, and the rest leave the number entirely to the court.
- [Counting overnights so the figure survives scrutiny](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/counting-overnights-for-child-support): Support guidelines that account for parenting time count overnights, not hours. This explains what each standard rotation produces over a year, why holidays move the total, and how the count feeds a support calculation.
- [What a self-proving affidavit does, and where a notary is not the point](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/self-proving-affidavits-by-state): In almost every state a notary is not what makes a will valid. The notarised part is a separate affidavit that lets a will be admitted to probate without tracking witnesses down. Two states break the pattern, in opposite directions.
- [Handwritten wills: recognised, restricted, or rejected](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/holographic-wills-which-states-recognise-them): About half the states recognise a handwritten and signed will with no witnesses. A few recognise them only for soldiers and mariners. Florida rejects them even when validly made elsewhere. The conditions differ more than the headline does.
- [Protest deadlines are rules, not dates](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/property-tax-protest-deadline-rules): Many jurisdictions set the deadline for contesting an assessment as a condition rather than a calendar date — thirty days after notice, or a fixed date, whichever is later. A table printing only the fixed date sends some owners away too early.
- [What assessing authorities actually want to see](https://legalbythenumbers.com/guides/evidence-for-a-property-tax-appeal): An assessment appeal is an evidence argument. Comparable sales and documented condition problems carry it; adjectives do not. This explains which comparables help, which ones weaken a list, and how to organise the rest.

### Glossary terms — plain-language definition, cited where a statute defines the term

- [Spousal support (alimony, maintenance)](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/spousal-support): Money one former spouse pays the other after a separation or divorce. The three words mean the same thing; which one your state uses is a matter of local drafting.
- [Statutory factors](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/statutory-factors): The checklist a statute tells a court to weigh when it sets an amount the statute does not compute. In most states this is the whole of the alimony law.
- [Durational alimony](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/durational-alimony): Support ordered for a set period rather than indefinitely. Several states cap that period as a share of how long the marriage lasted.
- [Income cap](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/income-cap): A ceiling on how much of the payor's income a support formula applies to. Income above it is left to the court's discretion rather than run through the formula.
- [Net resources](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/net-resources): The income figure a percentage-of-income child support guideline applies its percentage to, defined by statute rather than by what lands in a bank account.
- [Income shares model](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/income-shares): The child support model most states use: estimate what both parents together would have spent on the child, then split it in proportion to their incomes.
- [Percentage of income model](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/percentage-of-income): A child support model that applies a fixed percentage to the paying parent's income and does not look at the other parent's income at all.
- [Melson formula](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/melson-formula): A child support model used in Delaware, Hawaii and Montana that reserves a self-support allowance for each parent before anything is calculated for the children.
- [Self-support reserve](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/self-support-reserve): An income floor a support guideline leaves with the paying parent before calculating an order.
- [Overnight](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/overnight): A night the child sleeps at a parent's home — the unit parenting time is counted in, and the one support guidelines key on.
- [Parenting time percentage](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/parenting-time-percentage): The share of a year's overnights spent with each parent, expressed as a percentage.
- [Comparative negligence](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/comparative-negligence): The rule that reduces an injury recovery by the injured person's own share of fault — and, in many states, bars it entirely past a threshold.
- [Contributory negligence](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/contributory-negligence): The older rule, still followed in five US jurisdictions, under which any fault of your own bars recovery completely.
- [Damage cap](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/damage-cap): A statutory ceiling on part of an award — usually non-economic damages, sometimes only in medical malpractice.
- [Economic damages](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/economic-damages): The measurable financial losses from an injury — medical bills, lost wages, and other out-of-pocket costs.
- [Non-economic damages](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/non-economic-damages): Compensation for harm that has no invoice — pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life.
- [Multiplier method](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/multiplier-method): A convention that values pain and suffering by multiplying economic damages by a factor reflecting severity.
- [Per diem method](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/per-diem-method): The alternative convention: assign a daily amount for the recovery period rather than a multiple of the bills.
- [Specials](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/specials): Shorthand for special damages: the itemised economic losses in an injury claim.
- [Statute of limitations](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/statute-of-limitations): The deadline for filing a claim. Missing it ends the claim regardless of how strong it was.
- [Testator](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/testator): The person making a will — the figure every execution requirement is written around.
- [Holographic will](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/holographic-will): A will written by hand and signed, without witnesses. Recognised in roughly half the states.
- [Self-proving affidavit](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/self-proving-affidavit): A sworn statement attached to a will that lets it be admitted to probate without tracking the witnesses down later.
- [Electronic will](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/electronic-will): A will executed and signed electronically, valid only where a statute authorises it — and only once that statute is actually in force.
- [Probate](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/probate): The court process that proves a will and oversees the distribution of an estate.
- [Small estate threshold](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/small-estate-threshold): The value below which a state offers a simplified alternative to full probate.
- [Assessed value](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/assessed-value): The value a county places on a property for tax purposes, which is not necessarily what it would sell for.
- [Assessment ratio](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/assessment-ratio): The published fraction of market value at which a jurisdiction assesses property.
- [Comparable sales](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/comparable-sales): Recent sales of similar nearby properties — the evidence an assessment appeal is usually built on.
- [Notice of protest](https://legalbythenumbers.com/glossary/notice-of-protest): The filing that opens a property tax appeal, subject to a deadline that ends the appeal if missed.

### Worked examples — hypothetical household, every figure computed live by the engines

- [Two children in Texas, and why the other parent's income never appears](https://legalbythenumbers.com/case-studies/texas-child-support-two-children): A hypothetical Texas household with two children and one earner before the court. The guideline reads a percentage off a statutory schedule, applies it to net resources, and stops at a ceiling published outside the code — three details that decide the whole figure.
- [California, one child, and what forty per cent of the overnights is worth](https://legalbythenumbers.com/case-studies/california-shared-parenting-support): A hypothetical California household run twice through Family Code section 4055: once with a substantially shared schedule and once with alternate weekends. Everything else is held constant, so the difference between the two figures is the timeshare term and nothing else.
- [A shared-fault injury claim in Texas, method by method](https://legalbythenumbers.com/case-studies/texas-shared-fault-injury-claim): A hypothetical Texas injury claim with documented bills and lost wages, valued by the multiplier method and then reduced by the claimant's share of fault under the state's proportionate-responsibility statute. The same claim is computed with no fault attributed, so the reduction is visible.

### Printables — free, generated from the same packs the site renders

- [Settlement documentation checklist](https://legalbythenumbers.com/resources/settlement-documentation-checklist): A two-page printable listing the records every published valuation method is computed from: the incident report, complete medical records, itemised bills rather than balances, written proof of wage loss, correspondence, and a dated timeline. Plus fourteen per-diem log rows. It measures what is in your folder, never what a claim is worth.
- [Child support worksheet](https://legalbythenumbers.com/resources/child-support-worksheet): A two-page worksheet listing every figure your state's guideline formula asks for, in the order it asks, grouped by which of the four guideline models your state uses. The second page links each verified state's own official calculator, because that is the figure of record and this sheet only gets you there prepared.
- [Questions to ask a lawyer](https://legalbythenumbers.com/resources/questions-to-ask-a-lawyer): Sixteen questions for a first consultation, grouped by scope, money, time, jurisdiction and communication — each paired with what a clear answer contains, and a ruled line to write the answer on. Two consultations are far easier to compare on paper than from memory.

## Key pages

- [Free kit](https://legalbythenumbers.com/kit): settlement documentation checklist, child support worksheet, and questions to ask a lawyer
- [Sources](https://legalbythenumbers.com/sources): the data provenance ledger — every rule pack and its official source
- [Disclaimer](https://legalbythenumbers.com/disclaimer): what this site does and, more importantly, what it does not do
- [What's new](https://legalbythenumbers.com/whats-new): the change feed, generated from pack verification dates
- [MCP](https://legalbythenumbers.com/mcp): how to connect an AI assistant to the calculators
- [About](https://legalbythenumbers.com/about)