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The Graduate Program in Family Law, which leads to an LL.M. degree in family law, is designed
to meet the increased demand for family law expertise that the growth in this area has generated.
The program, as currently designed, offers a mixture of cutting edge practice and theory. One of
the things that makes Family Law unique is that it is still, in large part, a general practice area.
Many practitioners must know something about tax, real estate, partnership law, child psychology,
contract, as well, of course as basic family law. As each of these sub-areas has ballooned, so has
the information that a family law practitioner must incorporate into his or her practice. Effective
incorporation of that material requires being educated in technique and substance. Chicago-Kent’s
LLM in family law will provide that education.
In the past 30 years, due in part to rapidly changing social norms and in part to significant technological
advances, the field of family law has grown exponentially. This growth can be measured both in the
number of people practicing in the area and in the complexity of the field as it is practiced.
Among the kinds of changes we have seen in the last 30 years include:
- Blossoming forms of inchoate
property (stock options, intellectual property rights, partnership arrangements) that need to be
divided at divorce.
- Increased labor force participation from women necessitating an alteration of a needs-based compensation system at divorce.
- Social acceptance of non-marital cohabitation leading to increased reliance (for both straight and gay people) on contract and quasi-contract theories of property distribution at dissolution.
- Emergence of same-sex marriage and civil unions.
- Increased acceptance of same-sex partners adopting and parenting children, leading to a plethora of legal questions regarding the origin and nature of parental rights.
- Rapid technological advances in reproduction distilling the genetic and gestational reproduction from intent to parent (surrogate mothers, IVF, rights of sperm donors, open adoption, etc.), raising myriad questions about parenting claims, rights and duties.
- Recent advances in genetics testing that may affect the law regarding parentage.
- Burgeoning psychological theory relating to children, which is becoming central in all litigation involving children.
In the last five years alone, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers has reported a 25% increase
in overall membership. In the last year, the Illinois Supreme Court decided 17 family law cases.
The Illinois appellate courts decided 102 family law cases.
Additional information about the Graduate Program in Family Law, including admission
and degree requirements, is available from
the links on the right side of the page.
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