COURSE OUTCOMES AND COMPETENCIES:

1. Describe the role of a paralegal in the practice of family law, including ethics and malpractice considerations.
   1. Define family law, common law, and conflict of interest.
   2. Identify and explain commonly performed paralegal tasks in a family law case.
   3. Recognize the potential for violence in a family law practice.
   4. Explain and distinguish between primary and secondary authorities in family law.
   5. Identify and explain potential ethical problems in a family law practice, including attorney competence, confidentiality, conflict of interest, the handling of client funds, and the giving of legal advice.
   6. State general guidelines for reducing an attorney's potential exposure to liability for legal malpractice.
   7. Draft and identify the functions of letters of non-engagement and authorization as well as retainer agreements.
   8. Identify the types of questions to ask a client when seeking to compile a comprehensive family history, with particular emphasis on obtaining information on the financial resources and needs of the family.
   9. Describe the major guidelines on conducting a family law case interview.
2. Analyze the law and fundamental legal principles applicable to marriage, domestic partnerships, civil unions, and cohabitation.
   1. State the two main methods of entering marriage and the major requirements for a ceremonial marriage.
   2. Describe the causes of action for fraud and breach of contract to marry and the damages available for these causes of action.
   3. State the elements of a valid common law marriage and identify the most common reasons why individuals would want to establish the existence (or nonexistence) of a common law marriage.
   4. Define and distinguish between cohabitation and a domestic partnership and state the rights of the parties in each type of relationship.
   5. Identify policy reasons some courts are opposed to the legality of cohabitation contracts and describe the theories of recovery for nonmarital partners and the necessary elements of each theory.
   6. Describe the issues involved in legalizing same-sex marriages and the function of the Defense of Marriage Act.
   7. Distinguish among cohabitation, premarital, post-nuptial, and separation agreements.
   8. Explain the conditions under which the putative spouse doctrine will apply.
   9. State some of the reasons people enter premarital agreements and the standards a court will use to determine whether a premarital agreement is legal or enforceable.
   10. Demonstrate the interview and investigation skills necessary to uncover facts relevant to the validity of a premarital agreement.
   11. Draft a nonmarital (cohabitation) contract, premarital agreement, and post-nuptial agreement and identify the steps necessary to ensure the enforceability of each.
   12. Identify personal biases and methods for preventing their interference with effective performance of the duties assigned a paralegal.
3. Analyze the law applicable to annulment and divorce proceedings and the tax consequences of separation and divorce.
   1. Distinguish between annulment, divorce, and legal separation.
   2. Identify the two categories of grounds for an annulment.
   3. State and explain the four legal capacity grounds, four legal intent grounds, and all other judicially recognized grounds for annulment of marriage.
   4. State the reasons for which the Catholic Church will grant an annulment.
   5. State and explain the consequences of annulment in the following areas: child custody and support, bigamy charges, interspousal tort immunity, intestacy, privilege for marital communications, workers' compensation, and tax return status.
   6. Identify and explain the major fault and no-fault grounds of divorce.
   7. Describe the five major defenses to the fault grounds of divorce.
   8. Define judicial separation, stating the grounds for a judicial separation, and identifying its consequences.
   9. Explain court procedure in divorce proceedings, including: jurisdiction, service of process, use and function of standard discovery devices, rulings pendente lite, the major steps in a divorce trial, standard of proof, and enforcement options of the court.
   10. State and explain the tax consequences of alimony, child support, and property division.
4. Analyze the law applicable to spousal support, property division, separation agreements, child custody, and child support.
   1. Define and distinguish between real and personal property, tangible and intangible property, and separate and marital or community property and the consequences of commingling property.
   2. Define rehabilitative alimony and identify the major options available in drafting the alimony and alimony-termination terms of a separation agreement, including the major options available to secure the alimony obligations of the separation agreement.
   3. State the elements necessary for the creation of an effective, valid separation agreement, as well as identify the kinds of collusion that will invalidate a separation agreement.
   4. Explain dissipation of property and how the court handles such situations.
   5. Analyze how pensions are handled in property division, distinguishing between defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans and describing the function of a Qualified Domestic Relations Order.
   6. Identify documents that should be collected in order to value a business that must be divided, financial documents that should be collected to determine the assets of the spouses to be divided, and the use of interrogatories to obtain such information.
   7. Explain the types of debts that need to be discussed, options for handling debt division, and the tax-paying and tax-filing issues that must be discussed and resolved.
   8. Identify and describe the topics that must be discussed on the subject of wills and insurance.
   9. Describe the major options that exist for mediation and arbitration.
   10. Distinguish between physical, legal, and split custody.
   11. Explain the standard courts use in awarding custody of children in divorce proceedings.
   12. Identify the major factors the parties must consider in determining the feasibility of a joint custody arrangement and the major factors they must consider in negotiating the visitation terms of the separation agreement.
   13. Discuss factors in awarding custody: parent alienation syndrome, stability, availability, emotional ties, legal preferences, morals/lifestyles, domestic violence, religion, race, wishes of child, guardian ad litem's recommendation, expert witnesses.
   14. Identify the factors a court will consider in deciding whether to modify its own custody order.
   15. State when a court has jurisdiction under the UCCJEA to modify the custody order of another state.
   16. Describe how the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act operates.
   17. State the kind of jurisdiction a court needs to make a child support order and how the court can acquire this jurisdiction over resident and non-resident noncustodial parents.
   18. Identify the standards used to determine how much child support must be paid and the factors that determine whether child support includes the payment of college expenses.
   19. Explain the civil and criminal methods that can be used to try to enforce a child support obligation.
   20. State the effect of acquiring a second family on one's obligation to support children from the first family.
   21. Identify the leads that should be checked and the steps that can be taken by State and Federal Parent Locator Services to locate missing parents.
   22. Explain how a Qualified Medical Child Support Order can be used to obtain health insurance for a child.
   23. Identify when a court with the power to modify a child support order will exercise this power.
   24. Define necessaries and explain when they can be purchased by one parent and charged to the other.
   25. Draft a separation agreement.
5. Analyze the law applicable to illegitimacy, paternity proceedings, and adoption.
   1. State the inheritance rights of illegitimate children and who has the duty to support them.
   2. State the right of an illegitimate child to obtain workers' compensation and social security benefits through his or her parents.
   3. Describe the parental responsibility consequences of artificial insemination.
   4. Identify the ways in which illegitimate children can become legitimate.
   5. State what is meant by probability of paternity and explain how blood group tests and DNA tests are used in paternity proceedings.
   6. Distinguish between legal paternity and biological paternity and explain presumption of paternity.
   7. State the function and explain the consequences of the voluntary recognition of parentage forms filled out in hospital maternity wards.
   8. Define custody, guardianship, ward, termination of parental rights, adoption, paternity, foster care, and stepparent.
   9. List the four kinds of adoption and state who is eligible to be adopted.
   10. Explain when natural parents must consent to an adoption, how this consent is obtained, and when it can be revoked.
   11. State the requirements of a petition to adopt and the notice requirement in an adoption case, particularly to the father of an illegitimate child.
   12. State the eligibility of homosexuals to adopt or to be adopted.
   13. Explain the standards used by courts to terminate parental rights involuntarily and the major procedural issues in a proceeding to terminate parental rights.
   14. Explain the rights of foster parents in adoption cases.
   15. Describe open adoptions and the difficulties they can pose.
   16. Identify the criteria and explain the standards the courts use for determining when it is in the best interests of a child to be adopted.
   17. State the function of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children and the Adoption and Safe Families Act.
   18. Explain the consequences of an adoption decree, the rules of confidentiality in adoption records, and the function of a reunion registry.
6. Analyze the law applicable to rights of women, status of children, torts committed in the family law context, and new science of conception and motherhood.
   1. State the history of wife-beating and current trends in the prevention of domestic violence.
   2. Explain the procedure for obtaining a domestic violence order of protection and the relief or remedies available under such orders.
   3. Identify the elements of the self-defense plea and explain how defense attorneys try to use the battered wife syndrome in a criminal trial and the extent to which they have been successful.
   4. State the effect of the Married Women's Property Acts and some of the legal problems that can arise when spouses enter into contracts or conveyances with each other.
   5. Explain the right of dower and right of election that the law gives a wife upon the death of her husband.
   6. Explain when an abortion was legal under Roe v. Wade, define viability, and explain the effect of the Casey decision on Roe v. Wade.
   7. Explain the right of individuals to contraceptives.
   8. Define sexual harassment and an employer's obligation to prevent it.
   9. State when a child is emancipated and explain when a child can disaffirm a contract.
   10. Explain when, if ever, a parent has a right to keep the child's real and personal property and earnings.
   11. State the obligation of a child to attend school.
   12. Explain the procedural rights of a child facing long-term suspension from school as opposed to a short-term suspension.
   13. Define abuse and neglect and explain who has an obligation to report suspected child abuse or neglect.
   14. State when a minor can be convicted of a crime and explain how the courts handle noncriminal misconduct by children through the juvenile court system.
   15. Explain family tort actions, when they can be brought, by whom: loss of consortium, loss of services, alienation of affections, criminal conversation, enticement of spouse, enticement/abduction of child, infliction of emotional distress, seduction.
   16. Explain when spouses can sue each other in tort as well as when emancipated and unemancipated children can sue their parents in tort.
   17. Explain the legal theories of wrongful life, wrongful birth, wrongful pregnancy, and wrongful adoption.
   18. Define and explain the various methods of assisted reproductive technologies.
   19. Summarize the major provisions of the Uniform Status of Children of Assisted Conception Act.
   20. Describe and explain how adoption, paternity, and custody law affect surrogate contracts.
   21. Describe the factors courts consider when deciding what to do with frozen embryos when the man and woman who produced them cannot agree.
   22. State how different courts determine the rights, if any, of a gestational mother in a surrogate agreement regarding the child she gives birth to.