Learn Center
Every topic a family-law library covers, Florida-first: plain-language overviews, real FAQs, and the part a static library can't do — every page links straight into the live tools, the verbatim statute cards, and the rules behind it. Member firms contribute practice articles after review.
Starting, responding, finishing
Florida is a no-fault state: the pleaded ground is almost always that the marriage is irretrievably broken, and one spouse generally must have lived in Florida for the 6 months before filing.
3 FAQs · 3 statutes · 4 tools
Marital vs. nonmarital, and who ends up with what
Florida uses equitable distribution, not community property: the court starts from an equal split of marital assets and liabilities and can vary it for statutory reasons with written findings.
3 FAQs · 4 statutes · 4 tools
Florida speaks 'time-sharing', not 'custody'
Florida replaced custody language with parenting plans and time-sharing. Plans must cover the § 61.13 minimums, and the law starts from a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing is in the child's best interests.
3 FAQs · 5 statutes · 3 tools
Guideline math, not negotiation theater
Florida support follows the § 61.30 guideline schedule from combined net income, overnights, health insurance, and child care — presumptive, with bounded deviation.
3 FAQs · 5 statutes · 3 tools
Forms, factors, and the 2023 rewrite
Florida alimony comes in statutory forms — temporary, bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, and durational — awarded on need and ability to pay plus the § 61.08 factor list. Permanent alimony was eliminated for new cases by the 2023 reform.
3 FAQs · 4 statutes · 3 tools
Legal fatherhood: rights and support together
Chapter 742 governs establishing parentage — by acknowledgment, genetic testing, or court proceeding — and paternity judgments commonly address parenting and support in the same case.
2 FAQs · 3 statutes · 3 tools
The document your next five years run on
Florida parenting plans are court-approved documents with statutory minimum contents — schedules, decision-making, communication — and the best plans decide the fights before they happen.
2 FAQs · 3 statutes · 3 tools
Where most Florida family cases actually end
Florida courts refer most contested family cases to mediation before trial — a confidential, mediator-brokered negotiation with safety screening built into the rules.
2 FAQs · 2 statutes · 3 tools
Safety first — the clerk helps, there is no fee
Florida provides civil protective injunctions for domestic, repeat, dating, and sexual violence and stalking — clerk-assisted filing, no filing fee, same-day temporary relief available, law-enforcement service.
2 FAQs · 3 statutes · 3 tools
Building families; terminating and assuming rights
Florida adoption (Chapter 63) covers stepparent, relative, agency, and private adoptions — each with consent, termination, and home-study rules that vary by the child's situation.
2 FAQs · 2 statutes · 2 tools
Orders are the beginning, not the end
Incomes change, children grow, payments stop. Modification changes the order going forward on substantial change; enforcement makes the existing order real — through withholding, contempt, and license consequences.
2 FAQs · 4 statutes · 3 tools
50 miles / 60 days — the statute with teeth
Moving 50+ miles from the current residence for 60+ consecutive days generally requires written agreement or a court order BEFORE the move (§ 61.13001).
2 FAQs · 1 statutes · 2 tools
The child's voice, structured
Florida courts can appoint guardians ad litem, order social investigations, and use parenting coordinators — each with statutory powers, qualifications, and confidentiality rules.
1 FAQs · 5 statutes · 2 tools
Educational information in our own words — never presented as statutory text (the verbatim law lives in the Statutes and Rules libraries, hash- pinned). Not legal advice; no attorney-client relationship. Firm articles are the views of their authors.