Subjects that commonly fall under a nation's body of family law include:

Dissolution of Marriage:
This is an area of practice that end result is the termination of a marriage. This area of law can be fairly straight-forward to extremely complicated, depending, on the length of the marriage, whether children are involved, the property, including financial property, of the divorcing couple.

Child protective proceedings: court proceedings that may result from state intervention in cases of child abuse and child neglect.

Paternity: proceedings to establish and disestablish paternity, establishing time-sharing, parental rights and child support.

Issues may arise in family law where there is a question as to the laws of the jurisdiction that apply to the marriage relationship or to custody and divorce, and whether a divorce or child custody order is recognized under the laws of another jurisdiction. For child custody, many nations have joined the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in order to grant recognition to other member states' custody orders and avoid issues of parental kidnapping may be considered.