Review & Discussion of Significant Recent Family Law Cases

Review & Discussion of Significant Recent Family Law Cases 

Instructor: Cheryl Howell, March 5, 2024. 9:45 AM to Noon. 

This training event is free for members and will provide 2 CLEs. Non-members are welcome to join for $40.

Complimentary lunch at Starmount Forest Country Club is Included

This important and informative training event will cover current cases that impact family law. Additionally, participants will be able to bring their own questions and cases to the discussion. Some examples of cases and issues to be covered include:

1. Kline v. Kline (October 2023): Lump sum payments and child support

· Is it present income?

· Present income, one time lump sum payments, conversion of an asset into cash, lump sum as income, lump sum as income for child support purposes.

· Is the trial court required to include the money withdrawn by wife from the retirement account when determining her income?

· Other means of securing the obligation.

2. Welch v. Welch (NC App, May 2, 2023)(Welch II)

· Statute of limitations relative to QDROs, DROs,

· Entry of a DRO is “an action on a judgment” or “a request to effectuate or complete the equitable distribution judgment”.

3. When a trust must be joined as a party in equitable distribution.

· A beneficiary’s interest in an express Trust

· Legal basis for taking property from a Trust

· Vesting ownership in a party or both parties to the equitable distribution proceeding.

4. Unusual issues in the new NC Child Support Guidelines that we should know about.

· New NC child support guidelines.

5. Wadsworth v. Wadsworth, 868 S.E.2d 636

· Appellate court decision that life insurance may never be an appropriate means of securing the future payment of spousal support.

· Implications for whether life insurance can still be agreed upon in a mediated case as a method of securing spousal support.

6. Purvis v. Purvis: Student Loans and Equitable Distribution

· Classification of Student Loans as Marital Debt in the case of student loans taken by one spouse

· Classification of Student Loans as Marital Debt in the case of student loans taken by one spouse for the benefit of a child.

7. Pending cases that might impact our work as mediators and attorneys in family law cases.

Biography on Presenter, Cheryl Howell

Cheryl Howell joined the UNC School of Government (then the Institute of Government) in 1992. Prior to that, she practiced law in Winston-Salem and Fayetteville and worked as a research assistant to Chief Judge R.A. Hedrick of the NC Court of Appeals. Currently, Howell teaches, consults, and writes about family law and other issues, and she works with the NC Association of District Court Judges and the North Carolina Judicial College in planning and coordinating judicial branch education programs. 

Cheryl is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association. She also has served as a member of the Family Court Advisory Committee, appointed by the Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court, since its creation in 1998, and also serves as a member of the NC Child Custody and Visitation Mediation Advisory Committee, appointed by the director of the Administrative Office of the Courts. 

Her publications include articles and bulletins relating to family law and family court, as well as chapters created for the Trial Judges' Bench Book, District Court edition. 

Howell earned a BA, magna cum laude, from Appalachian State University and a JD, with honors, Order of the Coif, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.