Indiana authorities made a tragic decision in failing to promptly issue an Amber Alert for the abduction of Collin Walker who had been abducted by his father at gun point. According to an Associated Press article in the Courier Journal, Indiana does not allow Amber Alerts when a child custody case is pending. No one...Read More

Divorce and family lawyers often encounter HIPPA issues. The United States Department of Health and Human Services has useful information on its website. Even better, Louisville Bar Association members have access to forms for subpoenas, deposition notices, model cover letters for authorizations, and forms for release of psychological records on its website, written by H....Read More

That’s the headline from the Chicago Sun Times this week. “The divorced couple is embroiled in a bitter fight that will see national experts flying in to testify before a Cook County judge. Their battle reflects a national debate on circumcision — a procedure that has dropped in popularity in the United States over the...Read More

After many years of study, The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers published a Model Relocation Act, for consideration by state legislatures in 1997. Shame on us for waiting on our courts to adopt on a case by case basis standards for removing children from the locale of a parent. We need to get this into...Read More

Steven Kriegshaber, Louisville attorney, and a past president of the Kentucky Chapter of the AAML, serves on the national AAML Special Concerns of Children Committee, and helped author a publication, REPRESENTING CHILDREN: Standards for Attorneys & Guardian Ad Litems in Custody or Visitation Proceedings. Published several years ago, it advocates that GALs not make recommendations...Read More

Register Online for the 90 minute ABA Teleseminar, “Ethical Issues in Representing Children in Custody Proceedings,” June 13, 2006 at noon Eastern time.Read More

Magaret Dore’s article, Court Appointed Parenting Evaluators and Guardians ad Litem: Practical Realities and an Argument for Abolition, makes a good case for such professionals not providing opinions on the ultimate question to the court. In Kentucky divorce cases, there is no authority for the court to even appoint a GAL, of which I have...Read More

Click for more discussion of parental relocation on The South Carolina Family Law Blog.Read More

The Art of Divorce covers parents rotating living in the marital residence where the children remain, linking to an ABC Good Morning America story. There was a time when this was suggested fairly frequently, but we haven’t seen it done lately.Read More

A South Carolina case last month held that a man had standing to pursue visitation, even though not biologically related to child. Mom was estopped from contesting standing because of multiple year relationship she permitted to develop between man and child. Middleton v. Johnson.Read More