Pursuant to family law rules of procedure, family matters may be referred to general magistrates if the parties do not file a timely objection. Following an evidentiary hearing before the magistrate, a report and recommendation is issued to the circuit judge, which contains findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendations.

If no exceptions to the magistrate’s report are filed within the time allotted, the court shall take appropriate action on the report. The Florida Supreme Court defined appropriate action to mean that a judge has carefully considered whether the evidence and facts as fully set forth in a magistrate’s report support the recommendations of the magistrate; whether the recommendations are justified under the law. If such a review is performed, and no exceptions were filed, it is adequate. If exceptions are timely filed, the circuit judge must hold a hearing before acting on the magistrate’s report and recommendation.

Privileges in Florida is governed entirely by statute, and Section 90.501, Florida Statutes, indicates that it is the legislature and not Florida’s judiciary that is empowered to create or aggregate recognized privileges.  However, this statement does not affect privileges premised on either the Federal or Florida Constitution. Accordingly, all applicable privileges are included in the Florida Evidence Code.

The rules of evidence are voluminous and complicated.  There are so many rules and so many exceptions and so much gray area that it does get frustrating.  Generally speaking, family law judges have been known to let evidence slide by more than other judges, but it certainly helps the practitioner to be as familiar with the evidence code as possible.

Hello. I'm Kenny Leigh of Kenny Leigh and Associates. Our firm exclusively represents men in the area of family law. I'm here today with attorney Andrew Garrow and we're going to talk about alimony. Can you give a brief explanation of what alimony is?

Hello. I'm Kenny Leigh of Kenny Leigh and Associates. Our firm exclusively represents men in the area of family law. Today, I'm with Scott Eller and he's the director of our law firm and we're gonna talk to you about child support. Scott, can you give a brief description of what child support is?