Gunnar J. Gitlin completed his comprehensive rewrite of Gitlin on Divorce: A Guide to Illinois Family Law. The treatise represents the completion of the rewrite started in 2016. It is available now through Lexis.
Accordingly, the 2017 rewrite of Gitlin on Divorce: A Guide to Illinois Family Law went to press before the effective date (July 1, 2017) of the income sharing amendments. It incorporated all the changes to Illinois family law due to the rewrites of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act and the Illinois Parentage Act of 2015. And for the 2018, edition, Gunnar J. Gitlin, completed the process of updating the book chapter by chapter.
Gitlin on Divorce: A Guide to Illinois Family Law – 2019-2020 Edition – is now available. Illinois maintenance law is again rewritten and the 2019 edition of Gitlin on Divorce fully incorporates the impact of this law. For more details of what the book update includes check out our Blog.
Gunnar Gitlin’s father and former partner, H. Joseph Gitlin, originally drafted Gitlin on Divorce in 1991. It has been cited virtually countless times by appellate court and Supreme Court opinions.
Highlights of the 2017 rewrite include:
- The 2017 release of Gitlin on Divorce: A Guide to Illinois Family Law starts with a new name. The name changed from being a guide to “matrimonial” to “family” law. This is done in keeping with the majority of the other family law treatises from around the nation. It is also in keeping with the change in the name of the International Academy from the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (IAML) to the International Academy of Family Lawyers (IAFL).[1]
- The 2017 completes the re-write of the entire treatise based upon rewriting the child support chapter due to the 2017 child support income shares statute.
- This Fourth Edition also more fully incorporates the technical corrections acts: The technical corrections legislation to the 2016 Family Law Study Committee Rewrite of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (IMDMA) as well as the trailer bill to the income shares legislation. The 2017 update correctly assumed that the technical corrections bill to the income-sharing legislation would be passed by the time this 4th Edition went to print.
The 2017 release includes:
- Domestic Violence Chapter: The Domestic Violence Chapter was extensively rewritten with the last significant rewrite being with the amendments in 1992. The 2017 rewrite of that chapter incorporates the changes to the IDVA over the years including the changes required because of the rewrite to Illinois laws regarding allocation of parenting responsibilities / parenting time.
- Maintenance termination – Cohabitation: A reworking of the body of case law addressing termination of maintenance based upon resident, continuing, conjugal cohabitation in light of recent case law critical of an exclusive six-factor test.[2]
- Imputing Income: An updated discussion of imputing income to the underemployed an unemployed, especially in the context of imputing income to the potential maintenance recipient since this is often an issue in cases under the maintenance guidelines.[3]
- Property Rights in a Non-Marital Relationship: An updated and in depth discussion of the Illinois’ Supreme Court’s Blumental decision reaffirming the Hewitt decision and the fact that Illinois will not recognize essentially partnership rights to a non-married couple, even where they could not have been married as a same-sex couples.
- Payment and Credits for Overpayment: The author renamed and developed the section of the Enforcement chapter regarding payments claimed as a defense to contempt.[4] It consolidates and expands upon the variety of circumstances in which overpayments of support, maintenance, etc., may be credited.
- Property Chapter: Much of the property chapter has been reworked to bring the chapter more fully up to date with the 2016 rewrite to the IMDMA.
- For citations, Gitlin on Divorce, 4th Edition, begins the process of simplifying citations with a focus on the official citations.
[1] According to their website, “In 2015 the IAML Board of Governors agreed that the Academy’s name should change to the International Academy of Family Lawyers, since this is a more appropriate, up-to-date and accurate description of what we are.” See: https://www.iafl.com/about (last visited March 12, 2017).
[2] See § 17-2[j] Termination of Maintenance on Account of Nonmarital “Cohabitation.”
[3] See § 10-3[e] “Imputing Income: Unemployed or Underemployed.”
[4] § 18-6[i] “Payment and Credits for Overpayment.”
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