Product Description

Recent updates:

• Update: April 2025

  Dear Subscriber:

  Thank you for updating your reference library with the 2025 edition of the Massachusetts Family Law Sourcebook & Citator .This product combines the latest in sourcebook materials— statutes, regulations, and administrative resources—with a case digest summarizing decisions from the Massachusetts appellate courts. The book's entire contents are downloadable, along with more than four decades of collected decision abstracts, for enhanced access and searchability. decades of collected decision abstracts, for enhanced access and searchability.

  Highlights from the updates for 2025 include

  • a new requirement for assessment of animals kept in foster or preadoptive homes;

  • an amendment to provisions mandating reports of abuse or neglect;

  • a new provision on the use of educational diversion programs for children alleged to be delinquent;

  • an increase in the amount of the homestead exemption set forth in Chapter 188;

  • an amendment to the definitions of "abuse" and "coercive control" in Chapter 209A;

  • twenty new sections along with other amendments in Chapter 209C (Nonmarital Children and Parentage of Children);

  • amendments to provisions on firearms licensing, extreme risk protection orders, and harassment prevention orders; and

  • twenty-one new statutory annotations addressing recent developments in Massachusetts family law.

  The case digest for this edition includes summaries of sixteen recent decisions from the Massachusetts appellate courts. These decisions address, among other topics, an agreement for access to a family pet following divorce; termination of parental rights; sibling visitation rights; funds considered as both income for alimony and an asset of the marital estate (double dipping); abuse prevention orders; the right to counsel in care and protection proceedings; the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children; durational limits on alimony; consideration of a couple's regular pattern of savings in awarding alimony; determinations of custody of nonmarital children in the Probate and Family Court; involuntary commitments under G.L. c. 123, § 35; application of the Massachusetts Principal and Income Act; and remedies for engaged couples who decide not to go through with their wedding plans.

  Thank you for your continued support as we at MCLE strive to bring you the latest solutions for your practice.

  Cordially,

  John M. Lawlor, Esq., MCLE Publications Attorney

Table of Contents

Article I expand

General Provisions

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Article II expand

Judicial Notice

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Article III expand

Inferences, Prima Facie Evidence, and Presumptions

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Article IV expand

Relevancy and Its Limits

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Article V expand

Privileges and Disqualifications

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Article VI expand

Witnesses

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Article VII expand

Opinion and Expert Evidence

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Article VIII expand

Hearsay

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Article IX expand

Authentication and Identification

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Article X expand

Contents of Writings and Records

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Article XI expand

Miscellaneous Sections

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Addendum expand

Federal Rules of Evidence Comparison Chart

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