Children’s Issues
When handling an adoption case, the family lawyer guides the client through the types of adoptions, determining the applicable laws for a particular adoption, to ensure that it can be legally finalized in that jurisdiction. Now updated, this is an accessible resource for handling all aspects of an adoption case. Making it an useful desk reference, it explains the fundamentals of adoption law and provides detailed information, advice on client consultations, guidance for each step in the legal process, and an array of sample forms.
This clearly written guide provides family law practitioners with the practical knowledge and tools they need to analyze the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) and the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA).
An adoption can be fraught with high emotions and unexpected roadblocks. Explaining the basics of an uncontested adoption and steps that can help keep it that way, this book then discusses the many forms a contested adoption can take. The authors consider the issues involved from the perspective of all parties involved in the adoption "triad"-- the child, the adoptive parents, and the natural parents, underscoring prevailing practices while explaining how to address the challenges and potential vulnerabilities a contested case presents.
Giving attorneys insights and practical guidance on how to improve the collaboration between attorneys and parenting evaluators, this book examines all aspects of this collaboration. Looking at when this interaction occurs to the processes that can and should be implemented to prepare effective parenting plans for clients, the book also provides definitions of the roles of mental health professionals in parenting evaluations and the applicable laws and standards for each professional.
This book will help to understand and interpret the psychological dynamics often found in family law cases. This updated edition uses real-world examples where critical issues such as the developmental need of children, relocation, domestic violence, and the alienated child are involved. The book details a logical process for attorneys to critique evaluation reports and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a case.
In a practice that increasingly involves cross-border issues, a growing number of clients fear their children may be abducted, are concerned about overseas travel, or are considering international marriage or divorce. Written to help family lawyers best represent clients and their children, this updated edition explains all aspect of how the Hague Convention works in the United States.
A respected legal resource, The Indian Child Welfare Act Handbook provides a comprehensive source to assist lawyers, social workers, counselors, and others whose professions and interests involve them with Native American children. This updated edition incorporates the hundreds of new legal decisions since the last edition, including the impact of the recent Department of Interior’s ICWA regulations and two critical Supreme Court decisions. The authors examine case law from courts around the country – this is an issue not confined to reservations and their border towns.
There is no doubt that parental alienation exists and that U.S. courts have acknowledged the concept, although the theory can sometimes be misused. This practitioner's manual provides an overview of the concept of parental alienation and explains how to correctly handle it in court. "Hands-on" practice pointers and sample materials on litigating parental alienation make this an essential resource for the family lawyer.
The need to repair damaged relationships that have occurred between a parent and a child is one of the biggest and most salient issues before the family courts today. This thoughtful and detailed guide helps family lawyers and related professionals understand and aid in the process of reconnecting parents and children who have had their relationship damaged by family matters.
To facilitate the creation of high-quality parenting plans, this book combines practical considerations along with extensive research, theory, and scholarly debate to present a thorough, focused, and useful guide for attorneys and related professionals. Beginning with the basic considerations for an effective plan, further chapters offer tools for attorneys and others to craft appropriate and workable plans for their clients.
Children are the central focus in any custody case. Frequently, however, parents, lawyers, and even judges, lose sight of this. Opinions are evolving about how to keep the child as the case’s focus. One such opinion believes a child's voice should play a key role in any custodial arrangement. This opens a wide range of questions and concerns: why should we listen to a child, what potential concerns exist when listening to them, and how do we solicit their opinions? This book is written provide a framework for addressing those questions and providing the most productive answers.
A unique family law resource, this book by a psychologist with extensive experience in working with children, and an attorney who almost exclusively represents children in dependency court matters, reflects the real-world issues that are critical for working with child clients in dependency and family court settings. This is a clearly written and logical resource accessible to lawyers and related professionals at any level of experience.
This book takes a practical look at what special needs are, how they are relevant in the arena of divorce, and what lawyers can do to make the system work better for these children and their families. It examines how child support guidelines and standard visitation schedules often don't meet the needs of special needs children, and provides a model child support chart, parenting plan, and modification for these cases.