This report presents the criticisms of Family Law (as it stood at the time of publication) that led to the initiation of the Family Law project by the ALRI. Chief among these criticisms:

• much of Alberta family law is outdated;
• family Law is split up among several different pieces of legislation;
• different parts of Alberta family law are not consistent with each other;
• family law is controlled by numerous different bodies, with no central authority.

This report also reviews the purpose and method of the ALRI project, in its attempt to modernize, centralize, and rationalize Alberta family law, and to bring it into harmony with related legislation in other provinces and at the federal level. This report, like all the reports in this series, lists ten “general premises” which are the basis of the ALRI Family Law Project.