GFIC Recap: Family Law

The second panel during the Commemoration of the Gender Fairness in the Courts report last week focused on family law. The panelists were Susan Rhode of Moss & Barnett P.A., and Kay Nord Hunt of Lommon, Abdo, Cole, King, Stageberg P.A.

Both women talked about crucial changes to family law in the last 20 years, and also important changes that still need to be examined. Here are just a few:

• Early Neutral Evaluations: This was highlighted as incredible progress in family law, as these evaluations help parents by evaluating situations early in the process and leading to better parenting decisions over the long haul.
• Best interest of the child: Hunt noted that an important advance in family law was the presumption that joint custody was in the best interest of the child, getting away from notions that to be with one parent offered stability, which should be valued higher.
• Child support: Both women spoke positively about the changes in child support that revolve around assigning support based on parenting time, rather than custody. However, both women commented on how spousal support was still being counted as income in child support calculations, which reduced overall support for children.
• Spousal support in general was a big topic. For instance, spousal support ends upon remarriage of the recipient partner. But an interesting question is why should the need or fair share based on one partnership end if another is entered into?
  
• Another interesting topic was that of professional women getting divorced. Both panelists commented that the time frames for those women reentering the profession are too short--courts expect professional women to start earning a large salary right away, even if they have been gone from the profession for years.