In my professional opinion, I believe that you have an excellent chance to prevail on your application to reduce your alimony. However, the standards to reduce child support are even more difficult than the Lepis standards. The key issue is whether you are voluntarily underemployed. If a court finds that you are underemployed, then it will deny your motion to reduce support, and impute income to you. A very illustrative case is Dorfman v. Dorfman, A-1462-97T3, and A-1754-97T3. Here, the defendant/husband was an accountant and he married in 1988, and he was divorced in 1995. He had two kids. The judgment of divorce provided that his child support would be $310 per week and alimony of $150 for three years. These support figures were calculated when the defendant was employed as an accountant for a major accounting firm and earning a six figure salary.
In September 1996, the defendant was terminated from his seventeen year employment with a major accounting firm. Shortly thereafter, he accepted another job at another accounting firm for only $60,000. Thereafter, the defendant filed a motion to reduce his alimony and child support based on a change of circumstances. The family court judge denied the motion. The court found that the defendant did not demonstrate a change of circumstances, and he also imputed his former salary of $100,000 to the defendant. Thereafter, the defendant appealed.
On appeal, the Dorfman court held that the defendant was not underemployed. The court noted that Mr. Dorfman was involuntarily terminated from is job. The defendant was not fired for any type of misconduct. Moreover, the court was impressed that Mr. Dorfman immediately looked for work immediately after he lost his job. Thus, the Appellate Division reversed the denial of his motion to modify his child support and alimony.
In summary, the Dorfman case is an important one in the Lepis progeny. This holding indicates that the court will evaluate whether the applicant is making a good faith application to reduce support. Some key areas of inquiry are whether the applicant has made earnest efforts to find another job.  Has the applicant “loafed†around since he lost his job? Has the applicant made partial support payments even if he has lost his job? How is the job market for the applicant’s field? Does the applicant have any type of savings available to pay support from? Each case is made on a case by case basis. However, your scenario appears to be similar to the Dorfman case. Nonetheless, you will be legally required to prove to the court that the new job that pays y