Helen M. Dukhan, Founder of HD Family Law LLC, taught a continuing legal education (CLE) class on Saturday, January 12, 2019, to a hall filled with new and experience attorneys participating in the Bridge the Gap program at Fordham Law School.
Every state has their own CLE requirements. Attorneys are required to take a certain amount of CLE credits each year. Some of these credits can be from live classes and some from recordings. The Bridge the Gap program in New York allows new attorneys to fulfill their entire first year CLE requirement in New York and New Jersey, as well as allows experienced attorneys to fulfill their requirements in one weekend. The New York State Bar Association says it best, “Newly admitted attorneys can satisfy all of their annual MCLE requirements by attending this two-day program which is ideal for “bridging the gap” between law school and the realities of practicing law in New York State. Experienced attorneys who have an interest in other areas of practice can also attend and benefit from this program by learning practical information from skilled and experienced practitioners.” This also applies to New Jersey attorneys as well.
Helen M. Dukhan was asked to be a speaker at Fordham’s Bridge the Gap program because she is licensed in both New York and New Jersey, has offices in both states and has practiced Family Law for many years in both states. Dukhan has specialized knowledge of the many differences between the laws of New York and New Jersey that govern Family Law cases, but even more importantly, has a keen and unique awareness of the different systems and approaches a lawyer must take in each state to successfully represent a client going through a divorce or other family law issues.
During her lecture, Dukhan covered the different types of family law cases in New Jersey and took the participant attorneys through the entire divorce process from the documents that must be filed to start the case all the way to trial, if it should get that far. She explained the major differences between New Jersey’s approach to family matters with that of New York’s, and emphasized her practice tips and tricks that she has learned over her 15 years of practice.
Both during Dukhan’s presentation and afterwards, the attorneys were allowed to ask questions and interesting discussions ensued about certain issues. Dukhan explained, “what a pleasure it was to have such an engaged group of both newly admitted and experienced attorneys truly interested in the practice of family law.”
Dukhan has been devoted and solely focused on family law for 15 years. After graduating from New York Law School she attained her post-graduate legal masters degree (LL.M.) in Family Law from Hofstra School of Law, one of only two such programs in the country at that time. She is also founder of the non-profit Sunset 2 Sunrise formed with the goal of empowering recent divorcees and is a member of multiple bar associations in both New York and New Jersey. She has owned and operated her own successful family law firm for 10 of the 15 years she has been focused on the family law practice areas.
