Maryland Family Law Maryland family law opinions and commentary

BOSTON — Despite a compelling interest in protecting a child from exposure to his divorcing parents’ disparaging words, a judge violated the First Amendment with an order that was an impermissible prior restraint on freedom of speech, the Massachusetts Supreme ...

Justice Potter Stewart’s oft-quoted standard for judging a work “obscene” could be applied to the judicial determination of whether the disparity between ex-spouses’ standards of living are so “unconscionable” as to warrant an award of indefinite rather than fixed-term alimony ...

INDIANAPOLIS — A child advocacy group is praising a federal judge’s decision that allows most of a lawsuit to move forward accusing Indiana’s child welfare agency of inadequately protecting thousands of children in its care. U.S. District Court Judge Richard ...

DETROIT, MI — Where a judge found that a young child had an established custodial environment with only one of the child’s parents, it was error to discount the role of the child’s other parent simply because that parent worked ...

RICHMOND, VA — Where the parties’ divorce settlement provided that wife was entitled to a fractional share of husband’s 10-year retirement plan, the fractional share applies to additional amounts husband accrued when he worked three years past the retirement date ...

Jessica Overstreet first entered foster care at age 14, separated from her siblings and knowing very little about what her new life meant aside from what she had seen in the popular musical “Annie.” So for a while, at the ...

When Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said the government would relax some parts of a nationwide lockdown, residents entering an eighth week of home confinement to inhibit the coronavirus dove for their dictionaries. Conte announced that starting May 4, people in ...

MARQUETTE, Mich.  — A woman can inherit assets from her late spouse, even if they lived apart for more than a year and he died while their divorce was pending in the Upper Peninsula, the Michigan appeals court said. The ...

RICHMOND, Va. — At least six lawyers have raised concerns about a Virginia State Bar proposal to explicitly ban lawyers from initiating sexual relations with a current client. But there is no consensus on what’s wrong with the proposal. One ...

RIVERVIEW, Fla. — Katie Faust says her career as a surrogate pregnancy case manager is more of a calling than a job. That might seem cliche, but she backs it up. Faust was laid off recently due to the coronavirus’ ...