“Family lawyers do not get the respect they deserve. In terms of the potential breadth and complexity of issues which they face, family practitioners work in one of the most, and perhaps the most, exacting and demanding areas of concentration in the law. Under California’s community property laws, every item of marital property presents a host of challenging issues. Not only must the family practitioner worry about the characterization and valuation of each asset, he or she often must consider future tax consequences involved in various items of community property.
“On top of that, support and custody issues involve different considerations, in which a human relationship–as distinct from a discrete event–is the subject of the litigation. Manifestly, we do not need to make family practice even more perilous and expensive for divorcing couples and their lawyers by adding securities law to the already impressive range of legal considerations which must be taken into account in any dissolution.”
Court of Appeal in D’Elia V. D’Elia (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 415, 68 Cal.Rptr.2d 324