Castellanos & Associates, APLC

The Family Law Division of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County recently announced changes to courtroom operations. Read more on our blog:

In response to the growing number of child trafficking and parental kidnapping cases, border patrol officers are asking more single parents to prove their right to travel alone with their kids. Read this article from the Washington Post to learn more. https://www.washingtonpost.com//09190e5a-658c-11eb-886d-52

As you confront difficult child custody and visitation issues during the pandemic, we wanted to highlight a great resource to help. Read more on our blog:

Castellanos & Associates, APLC would like to thank Spectrum Reach for the opportunity to participate in their "Rebuild My Town: Southern California" campaign. We are proud to be a part of the local business community in Southern California and very grateful to all of the families and communities we have served for more than twenty years.

This article revisits the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to explore its impact on divorce and settlement agreements. We hope this will get you thinking about some essential tax considerations when planning for divorce. Read more on our blog:

As with the recent passing of civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis, the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a profound loss for our nation. Read more on our blog:

The pandemic will disrupt school this fall. Here are the essentials that teenagers will need for the strange school year ahead.

Parents may get the news of a loved one’s death over the phone and find themselves having to tell children who may be unprepared. This New York Times article gives advice on helping children with pandemic grief.

As reported by Education Week, protecting children's online data privacy rights is an important consideration for parents and educators as our nation's children engage in distance learning during Covid-19. Video-based instruction and the collection of sensitive health information by schools will require transparency and an open dialogue between parents and school districts to ensure children's data is protected during the pandemic. If you are unfamiliar with privacy rights for students under the Family Educational Privacy Rights Act ("FERPA"), this article and its reference to the "Student Privacy and Virtual Learning Guide" prepared by the Future of Privacy Forum along with the National Center On Learning Disabilities gives an overview of some of the privacy concerns and educational privacy rights under FERPA.

The 2020 Fall CLE Conference from the ABA Section of Family Law may hold a virtual CLE program. If you would like additional information, please see the attached FLS brochure about the conference, or read more on the ABA's Family Law Section's Website. https://bit.ly/2E5WdyL

Did you know free Covid-19 testing is available to LA County residents? Read our blog to learn more:

Please read our blog regarding the new statewide and county closures from Governor Newsom.

A simple piece of fabric makes a big statement: I care.

It would seem that alternative work programs create a win-win for employers, employees, and families. Check out this article on, "Adventures in Alternative Work Arrangements."

Un pedacito de tela demuestra que los demás te importan. Usa mascarilla para proteger a quienes amas y reduce la propagación.

The ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice recently sponsored a program discussing the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Court decided that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The ABA program entitled, "Under Review, Under Scrutiny, Under the Radar: The Federal Civil Rights Law Implications of the Recent U.S. Supreme Court Decisions in Comcast and Babb"..., is an informative look into the Court’s decision which places emphasis on the plain meaning of prohibiting discrimination because of sex in Title VII. You can listen to the discussion by panelists Michael L. Foreman, Sandra Sperino, and Angela J. Scott via the ABA’s website, which provides a thoughtful discussion of Bostock and the causation standard as applied in recent discrimination cases.

According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, there was a 12.7% rise in homelessness in LA County, as reported in the 2020 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. The count also shows a disturbing 20% increase in the number of seniors 62 and over and a 16% increase in women’s homelessness. In her recent statement, Downtown Women’s Center (DWC) CEO Amy Turk points to generations of systemic racism and inadequate housing supply as contributing factors to homelessness.... Reportedly, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Council President Nury Martinez negotiated a joint agreement between the county and the city, which is expected to bring indoors thousands of people who are living in homeless encampments throughout the city. If you would like to learn more about the 2020 Homeless Count, DWC’s continuing efforts to empower women and fight homelessness in Los Angeles, please read DWC CEO Amy Turk’s statement or visit the DWC website for more information.

"A seminal 2017 study of national data found that 53% of all black children will be investigated as potential victims of child abuse by age 18, 16 percentage points higher than the rate for all children combined. Undoubtedly racial disproportionality in America’s child protection systems is a function of both poverty and racial bias. But just because poverty is imminently more quantifiable doesn’t mean it is more potent. And just because eliminating racism is an imminently more complex a challenge than alleviating poverty doesn’t mean it can be abandoned." -- Daniel Heimpel, quoted from his article entitled, "Publisher’s Note: Silence Can be Complicity in Violence Against Black Families," published in The Chronicle of Social Change on June 9, 2020.

This morning Dreamers were finally given some hope. In a rare victory for DACA recipients, the Supreme Court rejected a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for nearly 700,000 law-abiding DACA recipients, stating that the decision was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. If you would like to learn more about this morning's decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, please read more from today's ABA Journal.

"In 1865, after two and a half centuries of brutal enslavement, Black Americans had great hope that emancipation would finally mean real freedom and opportunity. Most formerly enslaved people in the United States were remarkably willing to live peacefully with those who had held them in bondage despite the violence they had suffered and the degradation they had endured." -- Bryon Stevenson, Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a quote from the Equal Justice Initiative Report entitled, "Reconstruction in America." If you would like to learn more about the period of Reconstruction and its legacy in American history, you can read the report in its entirety below, or visit EJI online at https://eji.org/report/reconstruction-in-america/.