Family Law Section

Legislation 2008

New Utah Bar policy requires that sections cannot take positions on legislative matters until we have polled the section membership and the section has a “strong consensus” on a position regarding the legislation which is defined as 60% or more of those responding to a polling of the section membership. Thereafter, the section must have approval of the Bar Commissioners so that the section’s position does not conflict with a Bar position.

Therefore, from now until the legislative session is over you will be receiving emails polling you, and asking for your vote to “support”, “oppose”, or “no position” on various pieces of pending legislation that deals with family law. You vote will be sent to me at legislation@lasslc.org . All polling will identify the bill, a brief description and a link to the text of the bill. When time permits, I will include a recommendation from the Family Law Executive Committee. You will be given a certain amount of time to cast your vote in support or opposition to the bill – often during the session there will be little time to respond to a pending piece of legislation, therefore, there may be as little as a day or two turn around time to cast your vote.

If you have questions regarding this procedure, feel free to contact me at 578-1213 or to my regular e-mail at sralphs@lasslc.org and title your inquiry as “Family Law Legislation Question.”

Stewart P. Ralphs
Chair, Subsection on Rules and Legislation

Bills to vote on

House Bill 169 1st Substitute "Custody Evaluation and Parent Coordination." ( PDF | HTML | STATUS ) Although you have already voted on the original HB 169, this substitute has substantive changes and deletion of many of the provisions members of our section found objectionable. This is sent to you without a recommendation from the Executive Committee because their vote was split almost evenly to support and oppose. However, the sponsor, Representative Cosgrove wants the input of the Family Law Section. The bill passed the House yesterday and will not go to the Senate. Please reply to legislation@lasslc.org with your vote to "support", "oppose" or "no position by the end of the day Wednesday and remember to refer to HB 169 1Sub.

Past bills voted on and results