On this episode of Legal Magnolias, hosts Maggie and Sonya talk with Meredith Nicholson and Milan Pham about representing LGBTQ+ families in North Carolina, before, during, and after marriage equality. Meredith and Milan walk through some of the assumptions that turn out to be wrong, like why having your name on your child's birth certificate doesn't automatically make you their legal parent, or how families protected each other through ordinary contracts years before marriage was ever an option. They also get into the practical, less obvious side of the work: rewriting wills and estate planning documents so they don't assume every client fits neatly into "husband" and "wife," and what's changing right now in how families are planning for the future.

Today, their Durham firm, NicholsonPham, is one of North Carolina's go-to practices for LGBTQ+ families navigating marriage, parentage, adoption, and estate planning, handled by attorneys who are part of the community they represent.

Meredith and Milan also talk about allyship in a more personal way — what it's meant for Meredith to grow into that role through her law partnership with Milan, and how Milan describes allyship as an open door that not everyone chooses to walk through.

It's a conversation about how much of family law most of us have never had to think about — until, suddenly, we do.

Learn more about Meredith, Milan, and NicholsonPham: https://nicholsonpham.com/

Legal Magnolias is a podcast from Magnolia Legal in Durham, North Carolina — hosted by Sonya Linton and Maggie Davis. Follow the show on LinkedIn and Facebook. Learn more about the firm at magnolialegal.com.

Music by Tim Sheahan | Everyday Knife Fight | Chapel Hill, NC

Produced by Sara Hofman | McNeely Web Design | Raleigh, NC

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