MyCAA-APPROVED CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
FAMILY LAW PROFESSIONAL
The practice of family law examines state regulation of sexual and marital relationships, including the delicate balance of family privacy against state intervention in the marital relationship.
CERTIFICATION: MOS
PROGRAM COSTS: Varies
COURSE CONTACT HOURS: 375
PROGRAM DURATION: 6 Months
EXTERNSHIP AVAILABLE: Yes
COURSES AVAILABLE THROUGH
Tyler Junior College TJC-L-FAM
Download TJC Course Outline
Texas A&M TAMIU-L-FAM
Download TAMIU Course Outline

The Family Law Professional
The practice of family law examines state regulation of sexual and marital relationships, including the delicate balance of family privacy against state intervention in the marital relationship. Litigating around the institution of marriage and family that is most personal to individuals, family law brings to light a number of issues that affect peoples’ lives at a very deep level. Further, family law also covers principles governing child custody and visitation, child support, and the regulation of non-traditional relationships as they pose a variety of questions about what a “family” is under the law.
The Family Law Professional Program
Covering these intriguing and recently developing issues, this program provides an overview of family law. Students will explore fundamental topics including marriage, divorce, annulment, property division, parenthood, adoption, custody, support, and family violence as well as emerging areas such as legal recognition of non-marital families and assisted reproductive technology. Students will study all of these points with special attention to the legal principles, ethical issues, research, interviewing, discovery, drafting, and other essential practice skills that make up the work product surrounding this field.
For those students looking toward law school or who are interested in the paralegal profession, this program offers an incredibly useful and realistic look into the actual work that lawyers and legal professionals do every day. Examining the initial organization, operation and potential dissolution of a family unit, the Family Law program addresses premarital controversies, capacity to marry and the formalities of marriage in light of the rights and duties of marital partners, various grounds for divorce, annulment and separation, spousal support and basic issues of property distribution.
Certification Opportunities
After completing this course, you should be able to:
- Describe tasks paralegals perform as members of a family law team
- Perform research on issues related to family law cases
- Interpret the major legal issues related to premarital agreements
- Interpret the major legal issues related to marriage
- Interpret the major legal issues related to annulment
- Interpret the major legal issues related to non-marital families
- Interpret the major legal issues related to parenthood
- Interpret the major legal issues related to adoption
- Interpret the major legal issues related to family violence
- Interpret the major legal issues related to divorce
- Interpret the major legal issues related to discovery and financial statements
- Interpret the major legal issues related to child custody
- Interpret the major legal issues related to child support
- Interpret the major legal issues related to spousal support
- Interpret the major legal issues related to property division
- Interpret the major legal issues related to separation agreements
- Draft family law documents
- Propose strategies for dealing with ethical issues that arise in family law cases
- Use Microsoft Office
Technical Requirements
WINDOWS USERS
- Windows 7, XP or Vista
- 56K modem or higher
- Soundcard & Speakers
- Firefox, Chrome or Microsoft Internet Explorer
MAC OS USERS
- Mac OS X or higher (in classic mode)
- 56K modem or higher
- Soundcard & Speakers
- Apple Safari
SUPPORTED BROWSERS
System will support the two latest releases of each browser. When using older versions of a browser, users risk running into problems with the course software.
- Windows Users: Firefox, Chrome, Explorer
- Mac OS Users: Safari, Chrome, Firefox
SCREEN RESOLUTION
We recommend setting your screen resolution to 1024 x 768 pixels.
SUGGESTED PLUGINS
- Flash Player
- Real Player
- Adobe Reader
- Java
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