Join Resolution, a pre-eminent family law organization in the UK, for its full day Dispute Resolution conference, and join Melissa Kucinski as she sits on a panel with expert mediators to discuss cross-border family mediation.

This invitation-only event is hosted across several months and includes family lawyers from across the globe. Melissa Kucinski and Frances Goldsmith will co-train on the topic of custody jurisdiction and how to address cross-border parenting disputes.

Join this free 2-hour webinar (qualified for CMEU ethics credits in Virginia). This advanced mediator ethics training will discuss and share best practices for mediating family law cases where the parties in the mediation are represented by counsel. Registration is limited, so please register early. You will be asked to verify that you are currently a family mediator.

Join a lineup of accomplished instructors who will unveil time-tested tips for handling thorny issues in family law. Melissa will present on topics of international family law.

Both family lawyers and clients may have some basic understanding that in some situations where a parent unilaterally removes their child from one country, and takes them to another, that parent may have committed a crime. INTERPOL, the International Criminal Police Organization, may be involved in some of these cases.  When will INTERPOL issue a notice after a parental child abduction? How can a client seek a notice from INTERPOL if their child has been abducted? What is the process for deleting an INTERPOL notice or other request for police cooperation, so as not to impede the child’s travel in the future? What happens if your client/their child is stopped at a border crossing in the future, because of an INTERPOL notice?  Learn more about the fundamentals of INTERPOL as an organization, and how you can best advocate for their Client before INTERPOL in international parental child abduction cases.

Judges are increasingly interviewing children during Hague Abduction Convention proceedings in the United States, yet there remains a lack of guardrails to ensure this less formal process protects the child, the parents, and the integrity of the proceeding.

This brown bag lunch program will share advice for Expat Clients to consider BEFORE moving overseas with their family and advice to Expat Clients living in the United States, but wanting to return home. This issue-spotting program will help you pinpoint a variety of international complications for your clients, ranging from separation/divorce, financial/property/support, custody, agreement validity and enforcement, jurisdiction, among other things. 

Join Melissa as she co-presents to the ABA Family Law Section at its annual spring meeting in Boston, Massachusetts on the topic of International Law for the Family Lawyer. She and her co-presenter will explore the fundamentals that all family lawyers should be familiar with, including treaties and jurisdictional underpinnings.

The Myth of Cross-Border Asset Protection: US Recognition of Civil Law Marital Property Regimes and Prenuptial Agreements

Clients from civil law countries, or even those who marry in those jurisdictions, may have executed paperwork designating a “marital property regime” at the time of their marriage. These designations range from checking boxes on marriage licenses to engaging civil law notaries to formally draft a contract that disposes of the spouses’ property upon divorce. This paperwork may look nothing like the more formal pre- and post-nuptial agreements drafted in U.S. states to protect assets between spouses, and may not include formal disclosures. Are these designations of how to divide property enforceable in a divorce in your U.S. state? How do you even understand what your clients contracted in another country? Speakers will discuss what family lawyers should look for when their clients may have designated a marital property regime, including the typical path clients take to make this designation, the options available to clients, and the formalities (or lack thereof) when doing so. Speakers will then discuss what to do with these arrangements in a U.S. state court divorce proceeding, and explore options for arguing for and against the recognition of these civil law designations.

Join Melissa Kucinski and James Netto for an hour-and-a-half webinar where they will take you through all of the year's biggest developments in international family law in the United States and Europe.

Every country, but for the U.S., is a Contracting State to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires States Parties to assure that children are afforded the right to freely express their views in all matters affecting that child. When a U.S. practitioner may need their custody order recognized in another country, it is vital to understand how that other country accounts for a child's views, because that will play a critical role in how a judge in that other country views the U.S. process, and, perhaps, whether their court will recognize the U.S. custody order. Panelists will share their observations of how children are heard in their respective countries - France, Germany, and the United States - to highlight similarities and differences so savvy practitioners can be better prepared to present their international custody case in their U.S. state court.

Melissa will be joined by another Observer at the Special Commission to guide attendees through the main conclusions that were reached during the meeting.

This year’s symposium will explore how the UCCJEA and the Hague Abduction Convention are meant to provide clarity in the resolution of multi-jurisdictional disputes involving children, both nationally and internationally. Melissa Kucinski will speak about the most recent U.S. Supreme Court case on the Abduction Convention, Golan v. Saada.

Attendees should leave this program being able to conduct more robust interviews of their clients, know better what questions to ask, what documents to request, and how to gather information to make international legal assessments, or know when they are in over their head.

Join international family mediators to explore the ethical implications of mediating an international children's case. Pre-qualified for 2.0 CMEU ethics credits in Virginia.