Notorized hand written agreement for Child/Spousal support

If a divorced couple has a filed divorce agreement that outlines the child support payments and alimony but now needs to be modified a lot and both parties agree to the changes, can we hand write the agreement with both parties signatures and have it notorized? If stated in the new agreement that the new agreement will superceed the old agreement, would it stand up in court? The reason I’m asking, neither party wants to hire a lawyer or go back to court but also want to protect themselves with an agreement in place. We are trying to determine if we need to outline what we want and then have a lawyer write it up or can we save the expense of the lawyer?

Thank you.

If the child support and alimony are pursuant to a court order it is best to amend the current order rather than executing a handwritten contract as it could create issues in the future. The law of the case will remain in the order, but in my opinion if a dispute arose as to the Order vs. contract the party alleging that the Order is controlling would be esstoped from attempting to enforce the Order.