Wasn't worth it for us. Husband pursued contempt charges twice (once with and once without an attorney). Lost both times and had to pay BM's attorney fees, even though the judge had told BM several times that she had to comply and gave her multiple deadlines. When push came to shove, the judge ignored DH's stack of evidence and told BM that he believed her (she wept hysterically) despite her showing up to court with NOTHING at all.

I've never filed contempt charges before, but I've dealt with the legal system multiple times, without a lawyer. Attorneys add experience and often times charisma but you don't really need either for most family court cases. Google "contempt of court" and your state, and the forms and usually a how-to guide will pop right up. My state has a family contempt court section as well. Everyone above is correct, you need evidence. Even if you just write down every time she denied visitation or called the cops for no reason. It shows a pattern and she can deny it all she wants, judges are pretty decent at reading liars.

You have to realize, these judges have seen it all. And when you go in and get emotional, all you do is annoy them. Especially if you are calling the cops and trying to play BM's game. You just end up looking as crazy as her. Stick to the facts, have an answer for everything, and be professional. You'll be fine

Document, document, document, facts, facts, facts. It helps.

As for contempt... it is probably not necessary to engage representation but not a bad idea.

I just posted this on another blog:

One of the most heartbreaking things about attempting to co-parent with someone like your BM is spending a boatload of money on a CO just to have the BM fail to follow it. Even if you take her to court for violations, usually they get a slap on the wrist and a "talking to."

I know our BM got plenty of "talkings to" by judges until my DH finally got contempt charges (this was after 2 YEARS worth of missed visits for one skid). What did my DH get? A measly $500. This was for Willful Interference with Visitation. To me, that means the judge thought 2 years of his eldest child's life was worth only $500 to my DH. BM followed the CO to a T for 3-4 months and then started missing the visitations again. By that time, my DH just decided it wasn't worth it since every time we went to court, BM would ramp up her alienation tactics.

He never got any make up time which I thought was completely absurd.

BTW, the BM never actually PAID the fine ($500). DH just took it off the inflated medical bills she would send every six months.

Dh filed contempt for BM withholding visits he won. She was placed on probation if she were to violate the 30 days jail time and 200 hours of community service. No penalty fee bcz she had no income. She hasn't messed with DH timeshare since.

For us all it took was a nasty gram on our killer shart attorney's letter head to get the SpermClan back in line.  That and we had an in at the Sheriff's department and the city police department. My DW's childhood BFF is the daughter of the former Chief of Police of their small town who upon retirement from the PD was elected county sheriff.  He detested the SpermIdiot and would happily support us recovering the kid when SpermGrandHag would play games with the visitation schedule.  We always delivered SS to the visitation schedule.  SpermGrandHag liked to play the poor downtrodden Grandma card and would willfully misinterpret the CO or play some bullshit flight cancelation crap.  When she would pull that crap my FIL would meet the police or sheriff's deputy and they would pull up wherever SpermGrandHag was with SS and collect the kid, escort the Hag back to her house to get SS's bags and any time the Hag was trying to weasel would instead be spent with my ILs.

Finding the pain point that the toxic opposition will do anything to avoid is important.  That can and should include contempt motions for CO violations to drag them back to court if necessary.

We kept a motion of contempt hanging over their heads as a last resort.

What motivated them primarily was the social humiliation of having the Sheriff or Police show up at their home, church, family reunions, etc... when they failed to return SS per the CO and.... the huge financial hammer of us moving the case to our very conservative county in Texas out from under the idiot Judges in SpermLand.  CS would have gone up by more than 10X and that alone made the SpermClan maliable.

They learned to comply with the CO and to stop their crap. They knew that we would tolerate none of their crap and they knew that we enjoyed bringing the pain when they made that choice.