INTRODUCTION TO FAMILY LAW AND PRACTICE

Instructor’s Manual with Ca se Notes for Accompany Family Law Family Law

SIXTH EDITION

William P. Statsky 1 / 4

1 © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO FAMILY LAW AND PRACTICE

Contents AAfPE Model Syllabus Legal Analysis in Family Law Day in the Life of a Family Law Paralegal Key Terminology

Course Project: Divorce from A to Z

Assignment 1.1 Assignment 1.2 Project Ethics in a Family Law Practice Review Questions AAfPE Model Syllabus

You may want to ask the American Association for Paralegal Education (AAfPE) to send you a copy of their Model Syllabus for Family Law courses (www.aafpe.org). It was prepared by one of their task forces.Legal Analysis in Family Law

A discussion of the fundamentals of legal analysis in a family law context appears in Appendix A.There are also several assignments in Appendix A on elements, issues, and memos. Throughout the book, the students are given legal analysis assignments and are told to see the general instructions for these assignments in Appendix A. Preceding these instructions, some of the fundamentals of legal analysis are provided.

You have two options with these materials in Appendix A:

• Let the students examine the analysis fundamentals in Appendix A on their own if they

want to. They will be directed to the general instructions often. When there, they can decide if they want to read the fundamentals material that precedes the general instructions for the legal analysis assignments.

• Spend class time on the fundamentals. You may want to go over some or all of the

assignments there. See:

Assignment A.3 (legal analysis: elements)

Assignment A.4 (legal analysis: issues)

Assignment A.5 (legal analysis: memos)

Model answers or suggested responses to these Appendix A assignments are found in this Instructor’s Manual after coverage of Chapter 17 below. 2 / 4

• Instructor’s Manual with Test Bank to Accompany Family Law

© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.Day in the Life of a Family Law Paralegal

You might consider inviting a family law paralegal (or a panel of such paralegals) to the class to describe a “day in the life of” a family law paralegal, with an emphasis on recommendations to maximize the learning potential of being a paralegal and on overcoming any frustrations that are likely to arise in the real world.During a different class, you may want to invite a separate panel of family law attorneys (or an individual family law attorney) to come to class to give a “day in the life” overview and to highlight what they think constitutes a good paralegal and, indeed, a good supervisor.If you invite the paralegal(s) and attorney(s) to come on the same day, the attorney(s) may dominate the session, especially if the paralegal(s) are employed by these attorneys.Also ask each guest to comment on the paralegal job descriptions found in Exhibits 1–3 and 1–4 of Chapter 1. What would they add or subtract?Key Terminology

At the end of each chapter there is a list of key terms. Here is an idea you may want to consider: Tell the students to read the key terms first. Start at the end of the chapter. Before studying anything in the chapter, have students collect definitions of the key terms. They can use the glossary at the end of the book, and/or flip through the chapter itself to find definitions. Once they have the definitions, they then start careful reading of the sections of the chapter.This approach has the benefit of giving the students an edge before confronting the sometimes difficult substantive material in the chapter. To be sure, collecting the definitions first will not give them a full understanding of what these definitions mean. But they will be better able to grasp the material in the chapter if they have gotten a head start on the definitions, at least in an introductory manner.

Course Project: Divorce from A to Z

Here is an idea for a course-long project or assignment you could give to students. Have the assignment due during the last or second-to-last week of the course. If you decide to use this assignment, the students would need considerable guidance from you on what kind of detail you want and what format you want them to use. Photocopy the following instructions for

distribution to the students:

Course Project

Instructions to Student:

You have been asked to write a report for a local community organization. The subject of your report will be “Divorce in This State from A to Z.” Your report will walk the readers through a typical divorce case. Do not simply list all of the applicable laws in the abstract. Instead, describe the law and give concrete examples of every law that you explain. The best way to do this is to present the law in the context of a hypothetical fact situation. Tell your readers that you will present the law by using an example. Here are the facts that you can use for the example: 3 / 4

Chapter 1: Introduction to Family Law and Practice 3

© 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.Rita and Paul Smith were married in this state 10 years ago. They have two children, Paul Jr. (age 6) and Helen (age 3). They are in the process of a divorce. Rita wants sole custody of both children. So does Paul. As of the date of the divorce, the parties have a home (bought during the marriage), two cars, five bank accounts, as well as stocks and bonds.The house is in Paul’s name only. Both cars are in Rita’s name only. Everything else is in their joint names. Paul is a doctor with a high income. He has his own patients. He also is an employee of a hospital where he has an excellent pension. Rita is an accountant. For health reasons, however, she will not be able to return to any kind of work for about six years. Soon, she will have major surgery from which she will need several years to recuperate. In addition to the disagreement over child custody, Rita and Paul also disagree over dividing marital property, and about alimony and child support.Copy this fact situation at the beginning of your report and then tell your readers that you will explain the law by using the facts in this illustration.You will need additional facts about Rita and Paul Smith as you write the report (e.g., what kind of pension does Paul have, whether they have medical insurance). You can make them up so long as they are reasonably consistent with the facts given above.There are seven topics you need to cover in your report on how such a divorce case would be

handled in this state:

• the grounds for divorce in our state
• the great variety of documents that are sometimes involved in divorce cases and the

function of each document

• how property is divided between the parties
• spousal support/maintenance
• child support
• child custody
• the enforcement of the divorce decree when one of the parties fails to comply with any part

of the decree.Use the Rita and Paul Smith case as the point of departure in your report. You do not have to limit yourself to the law that would apply to the Smith case. You can go beyond the facts of the Smith case in order to cover facts that may not be in the case. Cover the law that would apply to the Smith case, but it is permissible for you to deviate occasionally from the facts of the Smith case in order to cover the law of important facts that may not be in this particular case.Be specific and be detailed. Assume that the community group members who will be reading your report are hungry for information but know nothing about the law. Therefore you must define all legal terms.There is a lot of material to cover in your report. While you must cover all seven topics, give your greatest attention to those topics that your teacher wants you to emphasize.Print your name at the top of each sheet of paper you hand in. At the top right-hand corner of each sheet of paper that you submit, print your full name and a page number. The page number

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