This child has two fathers....sort of...and this is not a story about gay dads

A California appeals court has provided us with yet another story of complex family life to which law must respond. The case is Citizens Business Bank v. Carrano. Doesn't sound like a family law case, does it? Turns out it's a case about inheritance, specifically about the terms of a trust. The law of wills, trusts, and estates is often really family law....it's just that someone is dead.In this

Ever thought of adopting your partner?

Not likely. But in times past -- sometimes not so distant -- that was the mechanism some couples chose to establish a legally recognized relationship. A few appellate court opinions on the subject have made it into family law textbooks. New York ruled famously in the 1980's that such an adoption violated the state's public policy. But many states allow it. Interestingly, two different Florida

Uniform Probate Code recognizes child of assisted reproduction by lesbian couples as child of both moms

Legal parentage matters for lots of reasons. One of those reasons is that it determines whether a parent-child relationship exists for the purpose of inheriting in the absence of a will. So when a lesbian couple has a child together using donor insemination, the legal status of the biological mom's partner determines whether the child will inherit from her if she dies without a will that names