The Chair’s Column: We have a blog? When did that happen?

Family Law Section

By Rebecca Watts

I am excited to announce the retirement of our newsletter.  Why is that exciting news?  Because with the retirement of the newsletter comes the birth of our blog!  Publication of a newsletter required months of work soliciting and collecting articles and case law reviews.  Because it could take months to put a new edition together, information in the newsletter was rarely “breaking news,” but the blog format allows us to more easily send interesting and timely content to section members.  As the blog gets going, you can expect to see articles written by section members, case law updates, information about section activities and events, and links to articles that may be of interest to section members.  Now that I have everyone’s attention, and speaking of section activities, let’s talk for a minute about how you can volunteer to serve on one of our section’s committees.  (OK, not the most elegant segue, but hopefully you will keep reading.)

The 2013 amendment to N.C. Gen. Stat. 50B-3 to allow consent DVPOs to be entered without findings of fact, the 2013 enactment of N.C. Gen. Stat. 50-19.1 which allows an appeal of certain family law orders before all pending claims have been adjudicated, the 2013 amendment to the divisible property statute.  What do all of these things have in common?  They were all drafted and proposed by committees within our family section council.  Amendments to Chapter 50B to allow modifications of DVPOs, amendments to the ED retirement statutes, a new parentage statute, study of alimony guidelines.  What do all of these things have in common?  These are things our committees are currently working on.  As you may be starting to suspect, most of the work of the section is done by our committees.  We currently have 1,467 section members, making us the fourth largest section in the NCBA (for those wondering, Real Property, Litigation, and Business Law are the three largest sections) and we do have some great people serving on committees now, but with a section of this size we are always looking for more folks to get involved.  Whatever it is about family law that interests you, there is a committee for that.  Right now, we have a particular need for folks who want to work on the children’s issues, parents’ rights, and modern family committees, but volunteers for all committees are welcome and appreciated.  If you are interested in joining a committee, please contact the committee chair and let him or her know of your interest.  A list of current committees and committee chairs can be found here:  https://www.ncbar.org/members/sections/family-law/leadership/