Note - comments below are by Peter Szabo unless otherwise indicated.
In the beginning...
First published in 1985, and quickly followed by the second edition in 1986, those first versions were small bound editions, and covered only the Family Court. The next two editions, written in 1993 and 1998 respectively, were loose leaf and very substanially increased content. The 5th edition reverted to bound version, to enable the additional incorporation of practice in the Federal Magistrates Court. That also brought about the name change to the Family Law Practice Manual. The 5th edition saw the arrival of Co-Authors Stephen Winspear and Rob McBain Without their assistance, the current book would not have been achieved, as quite frankly I was totally fed up with trying to keep up with the constant changes in Family Law. My enthusiasm has been rekindled, thanks to this additional help!
Future Directions
The main aim of the Internet edition is to ensure that the material is kept totally up to date. My next wish is to expand the commentary, and to add additional precedents, beginning with parenting orders. Now that rollover relief is available for financial agreements (as of 12 December 2006) I am more comfortable in incorporating a commentary on them. I was averse to this previously, as it was too easy for the unsuspecting practitioner to create a CGT liability for their client by incorporating a transfer of an investment property in such an agreement. Now, financial agreements will probably become the preferred method of documenting settlements, and in particular what I call the "house and garden" variety. It certainly is a much cheaper option than the consent order procedure. The new commentary should be incorporated by the end of 2008.
On the site I am also working on summarising other sites with Family Law Content, as well as providing articles of relevance. In short, I want to see this site as the starting point for all things Family Law in Australia. Any comments would be appreciated via email to pszabo@mooreslegal.com.au
Internet edition - comments and acknowledgements
Having been given a kickstart to get the hard copy up and running, and with my enthusiasm rekindled, my dream of creating the Internet Edition has become a reality. With the 4th Edition, I attempted to keep what was then the first 3 chapters (now the first 5 Chapters) up to date online. Alas, the task was hard enough with just the 3 chapters. Constant changes to the law, Court website managers changing website links etc made it very hard. I have kept the links to the 4th edition for historical interest.
What has made this task possible is the help I have received from Liming Teh. Liming and I worked on the previous 2 editions when Liming was the publications manager at the Leo Cussen Institute. Liming dealt with the tedious task of converting text into the necessary html format for the website. Additional help has been forthcoming from Matt Hall, who during his time completing his practical training at Leo Cussen, joined Liming and me on the project. Matt's help with getting precedents checked and loaded onto the site has been invaluable. Micheil Paton of Moores Legal has joined with Stephen Winspear (author of the hard copy Manual) in completing the team working on the Internet Edition. So I joined Moores Legal as from 1 July 2007!
The Authors
The links on the authors will take you first to their CV, the next will send an email, while the firm name link will take you to that website. As indicated above, whilst Steve and I barrack for the right AFL Footy team, the comments on this site are mine unless otherwise indicated.
Interstate Contributors
Thankfully, there are little differences between States. Nor should there be - in theory! Where there are differences, I wish to thank the following practitioners for their help: