A program of the Young Lawyers Division, aims to improve children's lives through advances in law, justice, knowledge, practice and public policy.

ABA members dedicated to serving the field of family law in areas such as adoption, divorce, custody, military law, alternative families, and elder law.

Online guide providing a greater understanding of the rights and responsibilities of people who are married, divorced, or living together. It could also help you work with others (including your attorney) to resolve disputes and plan for the future.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is a federal agency funding state, territory, local, and tribal organizations to provide family assistance (welfare), child support, child care, Head Start, child welfare, and other programs relating to children and families.

Child Welfare Information Gateway provides access to information and resources to help protect children and strengthen families. A service of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Articles on father rights.

This website has all sorts of materials on the legal aspects of Marriage, Divorce, Children, and others split into a number of overlapping categories.

Family law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including, but not limited to: the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships; issues arising during marriage, including spousal abuse, legitimacy, adoption, surrogacy, child abuse, and child abduction; the termination of the relationship and ancillary matters including divorce, annulment, property settlements, alimony, and parental responsibility orders (in the United States, child custody and visitation, child support awards).

The Family Law Quarterly publishes these charts in conjunction with the annual "Family Law in the Fifty States Case Digests." The charts summarize basic laws in each state by topic, including custody, alimony and grounds for divorce.

At Family Law Organization we have established a valuable Family Law resource for both attorneys and parents alike.

Marriage Rights and Benefits; Domestic Partnership Benefit; What You Can (and Can't) Do With a Prenuptial Agreement

In 1999 the Supreme Court of Canada held that same-sex couples must be granted essentially the same rights as married couples. On June 10 of this year the Court of Appeal of Ontario held that gays have a right to get married. The constitutional basis for the decision lay in the principles of human dignity and anti-discrimination.

HHS.gov - Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America

This paper analyses three central issues which confront the Commission on European Family Law and similar initiatives to harmonise legal policy applied to domestic relationships.

Articles and Monthly Updates on Family Law and the ECHR. The AIRE Centre, Advice on Individual Rights in Europe, is a registered charity, which provides information and advice throughout Europe on international human rights law, including the rights of individuals under the provisions of European Community Law.

The legal recognition of same-sex partners living together as husbands or wives has gradually emerged in the law of several European countries. Initially, this was done through the process of recognizing de facto cohabitation for a number of specific legal purposes.

The inspiration for this special issue came from our observation that the British and American approaches to family policy in general, and to marriage and cohabitation in particular, set them apart from their closest neighbors in Europe and North America, respectively. While certain demographic trends can be observed across the Western world, the response of Britain and the United States to such trends differs significantly from that of other jurisdictions in terms of family policy.

The EU has a limited role in family law matters. Each individual member state has its own rules about separation, divorce, maintenance of spouses and children, custody and guardianship and other family law matters. The role of the EU is mainly concerned with ensuring that decisions made in one country can be implemented in another. It also has a role in trying to establish which country has jurisdiction to hear a particular case.

The Commission on European Family Law (CEFL) initiated a research project based on transnational collaboration that was generally believed to be impossible to realize in Europe. Never before in legal history, has such a large group of scholars investigated the possibilities for and contributed to the harmonization of substantive family law in Europe. The harmonization of family law will provide an adequate legal basis for the further realization of free movement for Europeans and will greatly contribute to the factual achievement of a Europe without legal borders.

Common-law marriage also called informal marriage or marriage by habit and repute is, historically, a form of interpersonal status in which a man and a woman are legally married. The term is often mistakenly understood to indicate an interpersonal relationship that is not recognized in law.

Text of the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages, Opened for signature and ratification by General Assembly resolution 1763 A (XVII) of 7 November 1962, entered into force 9 December 1964.

Opened for signature and ratification by General Assembly resolution 1040 (XI) of 29 January 1957, entry into force 11 August 1958, in accordance with article 6.

EISIL has been developed, with the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, by the American Society of International Law (ASIL), a scholarly association that has been a leader in the analysis, dissemination and development of international law since 1906. This section covers issues arising from family relations, such as marriage and divorce, child abduction, and maintenance obligations in a cross-border context.

The jurisdiction of the International Family Law Committee includes those family law matters that transcend national borders, including issues involving international child abduction, enforcement of child support and maintenance orders across borders, intercountry adoption, marriage and divorce issues and related immigration matters that may arise when individuals from different countries marry, and issues affecting incapacitated adults and the administration of their assets. The Committee in particular focuses on the development or enforcement of multilateral conventions governing these family law questions. The Committee includes practitioners working in the field of international family law as well and academics and policy makers interested in this emerging area of practice.

Traditionally, family law perceived of the family as a unit (for historical, cultural and economic reasons). For the purposes of the law, this unit was presumed to be both indissoluble and homogeneous.

"Transnational" (or "transactional") law is becoming a frequent phenomenon in the practice of law and now occupies a prominent place in the study of international and comparative law. Both academic and practitioner-oriented information sources point to ways to locate and connect national laws with treaties and regimes of harmonization; however, commercial and procedural rules have been, in general, easier to locate than substantive and harmonized law in the family law area. This guide points researchers to significant electronic and print sources in transnational and comparative family law.

Not that long ago, international family law (IFL) referred to a series of multilateral conventions basically concerned with conflicts of law questions. It could be studied as part of a course on family law or as part of a course on conflicts of law. But IFL, or family law in which more than one State has an interest, has grown up and become a subject of its own.

The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) aims to provide free, independent and non-profit access to worldwide law.The core idea of WorldLII is to provide consistent and innovative forms of access to all of the high quality legal databases found on WorldLII's participating LIIs, and on WorldLII itself.

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers mission: To encourage the study, improve the practice, elevate the standards and advance the cause of matrimonial law, to the end that the welfare of the family and society be protected.

The goal or purpose of collaborative law is to offer attorneys and their clients a structured, non-adversarial alternative to an adversarial system of dispute resolution. It guarantees consumers of legal services high quality, skilled legal counsel to assist in the evaluation and resolution of a problem, without litigation.

The International Society of Family Law is an international scholarly organization dedicated to the study and discussion of family law. At present (July 2008) the Society has more than 630 members (scholars, lawyers, government officials, and other professionals) in at least 60 different countries around the world. English and French are the official languages of the Society.

Are Married People Happier than Unmarried People? Relationship conflicts stress men more than women; Resolution on Sexual Orientation and Marriage; Making stepfamilies work

Resolution, which was formerly known as the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA), is an organisation of 5000 lawyers who believe in a constructive, non-confrontational approach to family law matters. Resolution also campaigns for improvements to the family justice system. Resolution supports the development of family lawyers through its national and regional training programmes, through publications and good practice guides and through its accreditation scheme. Resolution also trains and accredits mediators and is the only body providing training and support for collaborative lawyers in England and Wales.

Articles written by attorneys and experts worldwide discussing legal aspects related to Family Law including: adoption, alimony, child support and custody, child visitation, collaborative law, divorce, domestic violence, elder law, juvenile crime, juvenile law, juvenile probation, paternity, pre-nuptial agreement, separation.

Adoption is the legal act of placing permanently a child with a person other than the birth parents. An adoption severs the parental responsibilities and rights of the birth parent(s) and transfers those responsibilities and rights to the adoptive ones. After an adoption is finalized, there is no legal difference between the adopted child and those born to the parents.

Child abduction is the abduction or kidnapping of a child by an older person. By far, the most common kind is parental child abduction and often occurs when the parents separate or begin divorce proceedings. A parent may remove or retain the child from the other seeking to gain an advantage in expected or pending child-custody proceedings or because that parent fears losing the child in those expected or pending child-custody proceedings.

Child Abuse also called Child Maltreatment is the physical and/or psychological/emotional mistreatment of children. Physical or sexual abuse are the most obvious types of abuse, since they often leave physical evidence behind but emotional abuse and neglect are also serious types of child abuse. Child Abuse is enforced by international, federal, state and local laws.

Child Support is the amount of money paid by one parent to contribute to the economic maintenance of their child. It may include a monthly court-ordered amount, medical and dental support, and child care support. Child Custody is a court´s determination to determine the legal and physical custody of a child or children. It may be granted to natural parents and to other parties such as grandparents.

Collaborative law is a binding, non-litigation approach to solving legal problems way in which the attorneys for both of the parties in a family dispute agree to assist them in resolving conflict using cooperative strategies outside the courthouse.

Divorce is the legal mean to dissolute or terminate a marital relationship between two people. Divorce laws are different in every state and in every country.

Domestic violence occurs when a family member, partner or ex-partner attempts to physically or psychologically dominate another. Domestic violence often refers to violence between spouses, or spousal abuse but can also include cohabitants and non-married intimate partners. Domestic violence occurs in all cultures; people of all races, ethnicities, religions, sexes and classes can be perpetrators of domestic violence. Domestic violence is perpetrated by both men and women.

Elder law is the field of law that deals with the issues faced by the elderly. The major categories that make up elder law are: estate planning; wills; trusts; guardianships; protection against elder abuse, neglect, and fraud; end-of-life planning; disability and medical care; retirement planning; Social Security benefits; Medicare and Medicaid coverage; nursing homes and in-home care; physicians' or medical care directives, various levels of advice, counseling and advocacy of rights; tax issues; and discrimination.