What is a Family law, Functions of a Family Lawyer
What is a Family Law?
The specialists in law usually chose the following areas of Law: Family Law, Criminal Law, Commercial Law, Human Rights, Constitutional Law and Property Law.
Family Law is one of the Legal Practice areas that involves issues of family relationship, to wit: marriage, Child adoption, marriage dissolution, Domestic Violence, and child custody, visitation rights, financial settlements and distribution of assets, guardianship, and child abuse and neglect.
This area of law can be traced to have originated from property law and succession, where in the early history of mankind, women are usually regarded as chattel handed over to their men counter-part, who pay for them and then take them home as wives.
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However, in the recent time, marriage has clearly been defined as a formal and legal union between two adults, who consented to be husband and wife.
Family Law revolves around family activities and affairs and its created to maintain the family relationship or to provide a legally accepted medium of bringing to an end the family relationship (Divorce).
It would be germane and crucial to note that family law also involves other areas of law, like criminal Law, tort, property law and Commercial Law.
Who is a Family Law Attorney?
A family law attorney is a legal practitioner who specialise in handling family related legal issues. It can easily be inferred that from his consistent handling of family law related issues that he has possess proficient knowledge in attending to family law matters.
In Conventional Law Practice, some family law attorneys among many other works can draft important legal documents such as court petitions or property agreements or even decide to specialize in adoption, paternity, emancipation, or other matters not usually related to divorce and they can also represent their clients in family court proceedings or in related negotiations.
It may be stated that family law attorneys are usually privilege to listen to sensitive family stories of their clients and so they are usually advised to act empathetic to the stories and never to disclose it to outsiders except at the express instruction of their client or when the law demands so. They should also employ the best approach and strategies in attending to their client’s case.
Can You practice Family Law and other areas of Law?
Yes, if you are in a general law practice, you can decide to practice law in conjunction to your participation in other areas of law. It can further be stated empathetically, that there is no existing statute forcing an attorney to specialize in a particular area of law and there is also no subsisting law that obscures the mixed practice of law. You can either decide to specialize in a particular area of law or you can mix your practice of law involving different areas of law.
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So, you can practice family law as a family law attorney and also attend to other legal issues that does not involve family issues. The only importance of having a particular specialty in law practice is that it will enable you to be more-vast in that area of law and this will in turn generate more clients to you.
Can Family related issues be settled outside the Court?
Yes, family related matters can be settled outside the court between the parties involved (usually between husband and wife) and this will obviate the needs of filing suits in the court. However, the family issues that can be attended to outside the courts are with limits, for instance, you cannot dissolve marriage outside the court and you cannot grant alimony outside the court.
However, the time that litigation usually consume is always enormous and even the money of filing the suit. In any ways, some persons usually resort to negotiation or other means of settlement that does not involve litigation.
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