341
Charts 2020:
Family Law in the Fifty States,
D.C., and Puerto Rico, Part 1
Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 54, Number 4, 2021. © 2021 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may
not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
342 Family Law Quarterly, Volume 54, Number 4, 2021
Editors’ Introduction to Charts 2020, Part 1
Charts 2020: Family Law in the Fifty States, D.C., and Puerto Rico, Part 1 provides information about family law statutes in these jurisdictions during the year
2020. Family Law Quarterly (FLQ) has long featured such charts, which were created and edited by Professor Linda Elrod, formerly FLQ Editor in Chief and now FLQ
Editor Emeritus; former FLQ Editor in Chief Kendra Huard Fershee; student editors from Washburn University School of Law and West Virginia University School of
Law; and other contributors, establishing a wonderful resource for practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and scholars. New York Law School (NYLS) became the
academic home for the FLQ beginning in the 2020–21 academic year, and this is the rst year that NYLS has completed work on the charts. Congratulations to all NYLS
2020–21 student Editors for their work on the 2020 charts and to all NYLS Editorial Board members for their leadership and support of this project. Individual student
contributors for 2020 are recognized with each chart.
As family law is an everchanging eld, we have updated some of the charts and we have also developed several new ones. In prior years, the FLQ “Year in Review”
featured charts on Alimony/Spousal Support Factors, Custody Criteria, Child Support Guidelines, Grounds for Divorce and Residency Requirements, Property Division,
and Third-Party Visitation. Going forward, the Year in Review will feature eight charts. Four of these are included in this issue; the remaining charts will be published
in a future issue, and all eight charts will be published together in 2022.
The topics are as follows:
• Current Issue (Vol. 54, Issue No. 4)
Chart 1: Divorce and Alimony/Maintenance
Chart 2: Child Custody
Chart 3: “Nonparent” Custody and Visitation
Chart 4: Child Representation in Child Welfare Proceedings
• Future Issues
Chart 5: Divorce and Property Division
Chart 6: Child Support
Chart 7: Parentage
Chart 8: Domestic Violence
In all eight charts, the information will highlight the considerable variation among the states and/or recent state legislative reforms. For example, the Divorce and
Alimony/Maintenance Chart and the Divorce and Property Division Chart will track consideration of domestic violence or other forms of “noneconomic fault” as a
factor when determining alimony or property division. The Child Custody Chart and the “Nonparent” Custody and Visitation Chart will capture some changes to custody
and visitation laws inuenced by the Uniform Parentage Act (2017), the Uniform Nonparent Custody and Visitation Act (2018), or other initiatives. In future years,
information will be included about state legislative changes that impact the information provided for each state in the Chart. To underscore some of these issues and
provide additional details, we have added a “Notes” column to the Charts. The Notes column includes some statutory text excerpts, as well as some information about
recent state legislation.
Published in Family Law Quarterly, Volume 54, Number 4, 2021. © 2021 American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may
not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
