This is the third in a series of articles looking at how the aging of America’s population is affecting the practice of law. Divorce rates in the United States have been on a steady decline for decades, but one group ...

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Shope v. Pennington (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-181-16, 20 pp.) (Robert Hunter Jr., J.) Appealed from Lee County District Court (Jacquelyn Lee, J.) N.C. App. Unpub. Holding: Given evidence of defendant’s hard work on a family farm and plaintiff’s only occasional ...

Tagged with: Family Law

Divorce lawyers, beware. Tech-savvy clients may be arriving at your office bringing a host of ethical—and even criminal—problems wrapped up with their domestic cases. They may be using cell phone software to illegally gather information, or they themselves may be ...

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The gradually improving state of the economy and the gentle rise in home prices are allowing many married couples to finally realize their long-delayed dreams … of getting a divorce. During the Great Recession, many couples across the country postponed ...

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Mussa v. Palmer-Mussa Bound by the district court’s uncontested finding that Kareem was not authorized to perform marriage ceremonies in North Carolina. From this finding it follows that plaintiff failed to show that his marriage to defendant was bigamous because he could not demonstrate that defendant married Braswell during a marriage ceremony that met the requirements of section 51-1. As a result, the district court properly dismissed plaintiff’s annulment action.

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Three Campbell Law School professors argue that while Amendment One is not written as well as it could have been, courts are more likely to interpret it in a way that minimizes changes to the state’s family law.

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Of the 55 words in North Carolina’s proposed constitutional amendment on marriage, three carry much potential for confusion: “domestic legal union.” As family law attorneys ponder how the amendment, if approved on May 8, would affect practice in areas like domestic violence, child custody and end-of-life decisions, they tend to focus on that phrase.

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By PAUL THARP, Staff Writer [email protected] When John M. Button Jr. asked his attorney if he could get remarried on Memorial Day in 2008, the attorney, John N. McClain Jr., allegedly told Button his 2005 divorce decree was valid. Button was ...

Tagged with: Divorce Family Law Legal Malpractice

Matters at the heart of the practice of family law in North Carolina are the focus of several bills pending in the state's legislature this spring. Two bills address the payment of child support by non-parents, two would alter provisions relating to protective orders and one would mandate the awarding of attorney's fees to prevailing defendants in cases.

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On Thursdays, a telephone at the Legal Aid of North Carolina office in Raleigh rings off the hook. The callers aren't the usual questioners who might need help with things like foreclosures or consumer-protection issues. This is Legal Aid's Battered Immigrant Project, a highly focused area where the intersection of immigration law and family law helps address the specific needs of immigrant women who are victims of domestic violence. The project formally began in 2002 with one full-time attorney and has since grown to five attorneys and three paralegals. It was initially an interest of Deborah Weissman, former executive director of what is now LANC.

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