Florida Rewrote Family Law in 2023. A New Generation of Lawyers Is Setting the Pace

In the summer of 2023, Florida rewrote the two rules that shape most divorces. On June 27, the governor signed HB 1301, which tells courts to start from the presumption that equal time-sharing is in a child's best interests. Days later he signed SB 1416, which ended permanent alimony for new cases. Both took effect July 1, 2023. Three years on, a generation of family lawyers is building its practice on that new ground.

Equal time is now the starting line

Before 2023, a Florida parent asking for an equal schedule had to argue for it. Now the parent who wants something different carries the burden: under HB 1301 they must show that equal time-sharing is not in the child's best interests. The same law dropped the old requirement of an unanticipated change in circumstances before a parenting plan can be modified, so families can revisit a schedule as children grow.

Florida is not alone. More states are moving toward 50-50 custody as the default, and the conversation in a family lawyer's office has changed with it. The question is no longer who gets the children. It is how two homes, two calendars and two school runs can work for a child, week after week.

The end of "permanent"

SB 1416 closed the door on permanent alimony after years of vetoed attempts. Courts can still award temporary, bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative and durational alimony, and awards made before the law were not reopened by it. For couples divorcing now, support is something with an end date, and the planning around it starts at the first meeting rather than the last hearing.

The result is a practice that looks less like a battle and more like engineering: schedules, budgets, timelines and handoffs, built to last until the youngest child is grown.

A lawyer who came up under the new rules

The attorneys setting the pace are the ones who learned family law as these changes arrived. Erica Burns is one of them. A partner at Purely Legal in Orlando, she practices mostly in divorce, child support, parental responsibility and timesharing, alongside personal injury work. The Florida Bar lists her as a member in good standing, admitted in 2015.

Her peers have noticed. Best Lawyers has named her to Ones to Watch in America since 2026, for family law and for plaintiffs' personal injury litigation in Orlando. The list recognizes lawyers early in their careers, and selection rests on peer review by lawyers already recognized.

Burns's path runs through South Florida. Her family moved to Florida in 2004, and she earned her bachelor's degree at Florida International University in Miami before law school at Florida State University. She began her career at GrayRobinson after internships there and at Park & Crump. In 2016 she co-founded Life Beyond Adversity, a nonprofit that gives inner-city youth a first look inside professional workplaces.

Two practices, one client

Family law and injury law sound like different worlds. In practice they meet the same person: someone in one of the hardest stretches of their life, who needs a plan more than a speech. Lawyers who handle both see how a divorce and an accident can upend the same household budget, the same school schedule, the same sense of what next year looks like.

The way clients find those lawyers is changing as well. Many now meet an attorney online before they ever sit in an office, and Burns shares her work as @erica_esquire. The Florida Bar treats posts about a lawyer's services as advertising under its rules, which makes the feed one more place where a practice is held to a professional standard.

What the new rules ask of lawyers

Equal time by default and support with an end date ask more of the lawyer, not less. Parenting plans have to work on a Tuesday in February, not just on paper. Budgets have to hold after the bridge ends. The family lawyers rising now are the ones who write those plans in plain language and stay with a family long enough to see them work.

The measure of the new Florida divorce is quiet: two calendars that line up, a child who knows where she is sleeping on Thursday, and a parent who can finally plan the summer.

Highlights

What did Florida's 2023 time-sharing law change?

HB 1301 created a presumption that equal time-sharing is in a child's best interests, and the parent seeking a different schedule must show otherwise. It took effect July 1, 2023.

Does Florida still have permanent alimony?

No. SB 1416 ended permanent alimony for new cases in 2023; temporary, bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative and durational alimony remain.

Who is Erica Burns?

Erica Burns is a partner at Purely Legal in Orlando, Florida, practicing mostly family law, and has been named to Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America since 2026.