An Overview of the Family Law Section of the ABA
The American Bar Association’s Family Law Section, abbreviated as the ABA Family Law or ABA Family Law Section, houses over 30,000 family law attorney members. Within the American Bar Association as a whole, the Family Law Section is one of 54 sections and divisions. Membership in this section is open to both individual attorneys and organizations, and it provides a forum for those closely tied to the family law practice across the United States: lawyers, judges, law professors, law students, paralegals, mediators, social workers, mental health professionals and financial professionals . From Amsterdam to Washington, D.C., all states, territories and other countries are represented by this assemblage of family law professionals.
As a whole, the Family Law Section engages more than 5,000 family law attorneys to work on various committees, which in turn submit their work for inclusion in the section’s two publications: the American Journal of Family Law and Family Advocate. The Family Law Section also administers the Center for Children, the Elderly and the Disabled, which promotes practice in the previously-mentioned family law areas, and provides additional educational programming to its members.
Services Provided
The American Bar Association Family Law Section provides its members with a wide range of valuable resources. The Section publishes a powerful lineup of substantive law and practice materials. The ABA Family Law Section publishes twenty-one books a year, including ten new titles. These books are written by experienced attorneys and judges and have incorporated the latest changes in the law. The Section also distributes four regular publications to its members: Family Advocate, Family Law Quarterly, Family Advocate e-Newsletter, and GPSolo Family, all of which are packed with information and articles for all interested family law practitioners.
The Section’s vast array of programs includes Webinars on many practical and substantive issues, from basics to advanced topics. For example, the upcoming Webinar on Tuesday, January 17, "Family Law Basics-A Fast Paced Review" will host a discussion on such topics as property division, alimony, child custody, child support, and property division, maintaining and grooming an expert, and meaningful trial presentations. All of these subjects are presented by experienced family law attorneys and judges. The Section’s annual conferences and regular meetings provide great learning and networking experiences as well as an opportunity to earn CLE credit. For example, the 2012 Midyear Meeting to be held in Chicago, Feb. 1-4, features speakers Alberto Gonzales, former U.S. attorney general; Steve Cresitello, director of the legal department for Mercedes Benz USA; John Q. Barrett, an associate with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan; and many others. The 2012 ABA Annual Meeting will be in Chicago, Aug. 2-7, for even more learning and networking opportunities.
Member Privileges
Membership in the Section of Family Law of the American Bar Association has many benefits. Lawyers benefit from the best writing in the Family Law to stay on the cutting edge. Study groups give members the chance to learn from experts. The Section is recognized nationally and has been recognized globally. There are committees covering Children & The Law, Domestic Violence, Equal Justice, International Family Law, Litigation, Native American Finance, Premarital Agreements, Senior Lawyers, Social Security, and more which allow members to network with their peers.
Members can join one or more of the 24 general and special committees that cover a wide range of subject matters and skills. Committees serve as a primary membership activity for the Section and allow members to network and develop leaders by focusing on a variety of accounting, banking, business valuation, child-related and other substantive areas of finance. Each committee publishes a newsletter or journal that provides substantive updates on their area of focus. Members say that joining a committee regularly expands professional networks and is personally rewarding. There are more than 90 standing committees of the Family Law Section.
The Section of Family Law produces a number of publications in print and electronic format which allow lawyers to stay current with the latest developments in Family Law structure and practice. The Section of Family Law offers an assortment of books and treatises that provide members with state-of-the-art guidance and insight from leading experts and active practitioners.
The Family Law Section offers CLE programs on current hot topics with sessions on electronic discovery, child relocation, alienation, case law updates, social media, summaries of the new UCCJA and UIFSA laws, ethical issues, clients with criminal issues and other pressing topics. The Section of Family Law also offers an extensive collection of live and recorded webinars.
Central Areas of Support
The American Bar Association Family Law Section’s primary areas of focus include divorce, child custody and support, adoption and assisted reproductive technology, spousal support, the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act, elder abuse, domestic violence , the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation and Inter-Country Adoption, the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act, Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA).
Advocacy and Legislative Interests
The American Bar Association Family Law Section takes an active role in advocating for much-needed change on issues affecting the public, the judiciary and family law practitioners. With dedicated panels and a national network of members who serve as subject matter experts, the Family Law Section is focused on the highest quality of advocacy that impacts the present goals of the profession. One of the primary objectives of the Family Law Section is to track legislative developments and to tackle obstacles both to the substantive law and procedural rules for family law. The legislative work of the Section has included role in reviews of the 2017 proposed tax reform legislation which eliminated deductions for alimony, the Uniform Parentage Act, the Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements Act and the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act which deals with partition sales of property owned by co-heirs. The Family Law Section publishes an award-winning Family Advocate magazine to present information about practice developments, legislative matters and judicial issues. Divided between substantive law and practice management, Family Advocate is distributed to all Section members; the Section also has a website that provides numerous free resources, including the model statutes, Legislative and Advocacy Resources Page. The website provides an electronic version of the Family Advocate and contains briefs, pleadings and strategies to aid in the practice of family law. The Family Law Section is involved in a number of national and international projects. It has led educational institutes on various topics and hosted a drafting conference with the Uniform Law Commission. The Section has also assisted in foreign courtroom observations. Advocacy of policy is a ninth principle of the Section’s mission statement. The Section advocates nonpartisan policy development and action related to issues affecting the family law profession. In this spirit, the Family Law Section along with the American Immigration Lawyers Association hosted a 2017 webinar entitled U.S. Immigration Basics: What Family Lawyers Need to Know about Basic Immigration Laws and Procedures. The webinar provided guidance about the basic components of U.S. immigration laws and procedures using the perspective of a family lawyer. A case study was analyzed in depth to assist family lawyers in assessing when their clients’ immigration status may become a problem and how to effectively navigate their case through the morass of U.S. visa and immigration laws. The Family Law Section’s multidisciplinary committees are comprising of practitioners, judges, law professors, social scientists and mental health professionals as well as international lawyers. The Section’s International Family Law Committee works with other country bar associations and the Hague Conference specialized commissions. The Section has been invited to submit the US government report for the Hague Conference on private international law for t international judgments project. The Family Law Section’s goal of a unified profession underlies its work with national and international advocacy efforts in all areas of family law.
Participation
Participation in the ABA Family Law Section is open to all those interested in becoming better attorneys, judges and other legal professionals. The process is relatively simple, requiring filling out an online form and paying annual dues. One year of active membership is $40; after that membership categories of professional dues go as high as $415 per year. Once you are a member of the Section, there are numerous ways to get involved. First, many members of the Section are also members of one or more committees. There are currently 23 active committees of the Section, with each committee concentrating its efforts on specific areas of family law, such as international law, child support, or adoption . Participating in a subcommittee allows for the sharing of ideas and experiences with family law professionals across the country. Additionally, participation in a committee often requires volunteers to help chair subcommittees and/or organize events. Another area in which you can get involved is via the Section’s publications, which include journals, books, and newsletters. These publications provide a platform for legal professionals to not only educate their peers, but to also raise their own visibility. Another way to get involved with these publications is to recommend topics for others to write about, or to write reviews of law publications. The Section offers many other opportunities for experienced legal professionals, such as serving as a mentor to other members or leading seminars and other events.