Chicago Family Law Blog today received honors as a Top Divorce/Family Law Blog. It is with great pleasure and humility that we are happy to have achieved this honor for the 2009-2010 year and hope that others can appreciate our efforts to bring to the public the news and topics that concern their rights and their families. You can read the story and see the other top bloggers at http://www.attorney.org/law-blogs.html
The number of couples living together without choosing to get married has more than tripled in the past two decades. Unless the cohabiting couple lives in a state which recognizes common law marriages, living together does not automatically provide them with the legal rights and protections of a traditional marriage. Accordingly, upon separation or death of one cohabiting partner, the law may treat the couple as complete strangers. To prevent such a result, unmarried couples can opt to legally define their relationship by entering into a cohabitation agreement, which will direct a court on how to divide property and assets among the couple.
Cohabitation Agreements
A cohabitation agreement is a legal contract which defines the partnership of an unmarried couple. The agreement is often necessary to preserve some important legal rights, obligations and protections that an unmarried couple necessarily foregoes. In other words, the privileged legal status of married couples, which is provided automatically through custom, statute and agreement, must be affirmatively contracted into by cohabiting couples. Although cohabiting couples cannot achieve all of the legal benefits of married couples (such as tax benefits), a cohabitation agreement provides a good start in defining the rights and responsibilities of each party.
Adoption is the process by which an adult becomes the legal parent of an individual who is not their biological child. A finalized adoption severs all legal ties between the child and the natural parents, thereby terminating all parental rights. However, adoption also creates new obligations on the part of the adoptive parents. The new parent-child relationship establishes legal responsibility for child support, rights to an inheritance and/or custody. Typically, adoption laws vary by state and there are several different types or forms of adoption including agency and independent adoption.
General Types of Domestic Adoption Adoption can occur domestically or internationally. Each state has its own laws governing domestic adoptions. There are several different types of domestic adoption including:
Children born out of wedlock outside the United States to one citizen parent and one noncitizen parent face different requirements for acquiring U.S. citizenship, depending on the gender of the citizen parent. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) provides that the child must meet additional requirements to obtain U.S. citizenship when their father (but not their mother), is a citizen. The differential treatment depending on the gender of the unmarried parent citizen in determining the child's citizenship was held to be constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001.
Child Citizenship Act of 2000
The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA) governs the acquisition of U.S. citizenship by children born abroad. Specifically, children born outside the U.S. receive automatic citizenship where the following three conditions have been satisfied:
1. At least one parent is a U.S. citizen (either by birth or naturalization);
2. The child is under the age of 18 years; and
3. The child is residing in the U.S., in the legal and physical custody of the citizen parent
pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence.
However, where the child was born abroad and out of wedlock, some additional requirements might apply if only the father is a U.S. citizen.
Parents have a constitutionally protected fundamental right in the care, custody and control of their children. This constitutional guarantee includes the parents' right and freedom to expose their children to their own particular religious beliefs. However, when interfaith spouses divorce, disagreements over the religious upbringing of their children can ensue. In such circumstances, state family courts may be called upon to balance the competing interest of the parents and the children in an effort to resolve the dispute.
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Chicago Family Law Blog today received honors as a Top Divorce/Family Law Blog. It is with great pleasure and humility that we are happy to have achieved this honor for the 2009-2010 year and hope that others can appreciate our efforts to bring to the public the news and topics that concern their rights and their families. You can read the story and see the other top bloggers at
http://www.attorney.org/law-blogs.html