Summarize Law

FAQ Glossary Learn About

ESPANOL ENGLISH

Search results for “family law”

20 results

No, divorce property division is not always 50/50

States use two very different systems to divide property in divorce, and the difference can change who keeps the house, retirement money, and debt.

ARTICLE by Travis Sorensen

At-will employment: the "you can be fired anytime" rule has one giant catch

At-will employment is the default rule in almost every state, but it only really applies if you are legally an employee in the first place.

ARTICLE by James Thornton

Illegal search, real evidence: why police can lose a case even when they found the goods

Mapp v. Ohio made illegally seized evidence unusable in state criminal trials, forcing police to follow the Fourth Amendment instead of treating it like a suggestion.

ARTICLE by Kyle Reinhart

Dobbs changed abortion law fast, but enforcement is messier than it looks

The Supreme Court erased the nationwide abortion right in 2022, but whether state abortion bans actually get enforced often depends on who is suing, who is prosecuting, and which court steps in.

ARTICLE by Wayne Hustead

Joint and several liability: the old rule that can leave one defendant holding the whole bag

Joint and several liability means an injured person may collect the full judgment from one defendant, but the real fight is how that rule collides with comparative fault, settlements, bankruptcy, and state law changes.

ARTICLE by Keith Ouellette

Employee vs independent contractor: the liability dodge that usually fails

Vicarious liability means you can end up paying for someone else's misconduct, and the old "they weren't really my employee" escape hatch is a lot weaker than people think.

ARTICLE by Danny Correia

What evidence can be excluded from court, and why?

A judge can exclude important-looking evidence at the last minute, even if it seems decisive, and once that happens a claim or defense can weaken fast. That surprises many...

Habeas corpus is real, but proving you should be released is brutally hard

Habeas corpus lets a prisoner challenge unlawful custody, but modern federal habeas mostly turns on a punishing rule: it is not enough to show the state court was wrong.

ARTICLE by LaKeisha Davis

Terry v. Ohio: the street stop rule that grew far beyond one man on a Cleveland sidewalk

Terry v. Ohio created the rule that lets police briefly stop and pat down someone without a warrant, and the real fight now is over how much suspicion counts as enough.

ARTICLE by Colleen O'Brien

Eighth Amendment: the "evolving standards" test that changed everything

The Eighth Amendment is not a list of banned punishments so much as a moving constitutional standard, and one Supreme Court case explains why.

ARTICLE by Pete Rossignol

I crossed state lines with a protection order, did I ruin my case?

A recent update is that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was reauthorized in 2022, keeping in place the rule that a valid protection order must be honored across state...

A guide to Loving v. Virginia and why marriage rights run deeper than race

Loving v. Virginia did more than end interracial marriage bans - it treated marriage as a basic right the government cannot shut off for bad reasons.

ARTICLE by Susan Watanabe

A guide to RFRA and why Congress made it harder to enforce some laws

RFRA was Congress's response to a Supreme Court decision that weakened free-exercise protections, and it gives people a powerful way to argue that federal law burdens their religion too much.

ARTICLE by Sandra Fischer

Almost everyone gets the Commerce Clause wrong - and it decides who can make the rules

The Commerce Clause is why Congress can reach far beyond shipping and trucking, but it still has real limits that matter if you are thinking about suing under federal law.

ARTICLE by Marcus Brown

Your gun rights may not save you - here is what Heller actually protects

Heller recognized an individual Second Amendment right, but people get burned when they assume that means every gun restriction in a lease, eviction case, protection order, or criminal case is automatically illegal.

ARTICLE by Keisha Williams

what happens if a will is signed without proper witnesses?

In California, a handwritten holographic will can sometimes be valid without witnesses. In Washington, Oregon, Florida, and many other states, a typed will signed without the...

Preponderance vs beyond a reasonable doubt and why your workplace case needs far less proof

In most civil workplace cases, you do not need airtight proof - you need enough credible evidence to show your version is more likely true than not.

ARTICLE by Theresa Palazzo

Is it legal to make me sign a noncompete after I quit?

A major 2024 change put noncompetes in the spotlight: the FTC adopted a nationwide ban, but courts blocked that rule before it took effect for most employers. That means state...

Why is my criminal record still showing up if it was expunged?

Expungement does not always mean the record disappears everywhere. In the United States, what "expunged" means depends heavily on state law, and in many places it is closer to...

DMCA takedown notice

Not a court order, and not proof that someone actually infringed a copyright. It is a formal request sent under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), usually...