Maryland Family Law Maryland family law opinions and commentary

RICHMOND, Va. — A West Virginia family court judge who went to the house of a litigant and supervised the search for items he allegedly failed to turn over to his ex-wife was not entitled to judicial immunity in a ...

A mother’s inability to remedy a breakdown in her relationship with her 14-year-old child was not a sufficient basis for a finding of parental unfitness, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled. The child nominated her maternal grandmother and uncle as ...

RICHMOND, Va. — Where the only discernible claim in a pro se complaint was for alimony and child support, the federal courts are divested “of power to issue divorce, alimony, and child custody decrees,”  a federal judge in West Virginia ...

RICHMOND, VA — There was sufficient support for the circuit court “to deviate from the child support guidelines to include the cost of the child’s private school tuition[.]” and to require the mother must abide by her previous agreement to ...

Louisiana officials have launched a new website that allows the public to file complaints related to the state’s child welfare system or any other agency that provides services to children. The website, www.Kids4.La, is for the state’s child ombudsman, recently ...

RICHMOND, Va. — Where the decedent died intestate, the disposition of real estate he owned in Maryland is governed by Maryland law, a Fairfax County judge has ruled. Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Richard E. Gardner issued the ruling in In ...

A parent and child working as attorneys can represent opposing parties in a divorce proceeding provided that their clients consent in writing to that arrangement, the Rhode Island Supreme Court Ethics Advisory Panel has ruled. “Ordinarily, this situation creates a ...

Virginia’s newly amended nonparental visitation statute — Code § 20-124.2(B2) — is unconstitutional because it doesn’t require showing that the grandchildren will suffer “actual harm” without the visitation, a Washington County judge has held. The grandparents claimed that, under the ...

ST. LOUIS — Dylan R. Briggs eagerly wants to keep improving his trial skills. It’s called the “practice” of law for a reason, he thinks. But there’s an issue. “In our business, we very rarely have the opportunity to have ...

ST. LOUIS — A man and the surrogate mother of a child he believed to biologically be his sued St. Luke’s Episcopal-Presbyterian Hospitals and Dr. Sherman J. Silber for not informing them of the man’s low sperm motility test results, ...