Perhaps you’d like to make an appointment with a divorce lawyer for the first week in October. Forget it. The first week of October is when lawyers who specialize in separation, divorce, and custody issues will be going to Scottsdale, Arizona, to play golf.

Well, they also go to sit through a series of Mandatory Continuing Legal Education lectures. Most states require their lawyers to bundle up the spouse and rug rats and travel to some far off destination to sit through lectures and earn continuing education credits.

In some cases, MCLE points can also be earned if lawyers listen to audio CDs, or do interactive online coursework, or — old school — actually read some printed matter.

The idea is that they keep up with what’s new in their field.

So what’s new in Family Law?

The American Bar Association conference at the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale is offering the following courses for CLE credit:

• (At Least) 10 Things Every Family Lawyer Should Know about Assisted Reproductive Technology Law. Issues like who’s the mother, who’s the father, and who gets custody of the embryos.

• Retirement Benefits, Part 1 (led by a QDRO expert, as in Qualified Domestic Relations Order, the thing that gives a spouse a right to the other spouse’s pension benefits.)

• Retirement Benefits, Part II (ERISA, Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which applies to COBRA for health insurance, retirement and other benefits)

• Understanding the Sweeping Changes to the Bankruptcy Code as it Affects Divorce and Divorcing Parties (Just as it says)

• Ethical Consideration in Collaborative Law: Can I Do It? Should I Do It? Where Are the Potholes? (This one is a puzzler… lawyers are concerned that they can’t or shouldn’t do collaborative divorces… like what? What potholes? That they have to promise not to take the case to court?)

• Divorce for Wealthy and Non-Wealthy Seniors: Hot Topics in Estates & Trusts for Family Law Practitioners. (Estate planning, wills and trusts for the wealthy; Medicaid for the others, and we kinda suspect lawyers would rather represent the former)

• Feathering the Nest – Alimony Strategy and Tips (Please do tell!)

• The Art of the Draft (How to write pre- and post-nuptial agreements so that no one, not even a Hollywood star, can get out of it.)

• And one CLE lecture on ethical issues in practicing assisted reproductive technology law.

There are also courses open to everyone, but these don’t offer credit:

• Deciphering the DaVinci Code of Divorce: The Idiot’s Guide to Tax Return and Financial Analysis for Fun and Profit (This is for those lawyers for whom the term “forensic accounting” is not terrifying.)

• Lawyers in LaLa Land: Images of Legal Ethics & Professionalism in the Movies.

• Depositions: Rewards and Pitfalls

Plus lots of invitations to make a reservation for the golf course or side trips to dude ranches and Sedona, Arizona.

Which makes us at FWW wonder what a conference for divorcing women would offer as lectures (credit or no credit). I would guess we’d like to see:

• How to pick a divorce attorney who will listen without billing by the quarter hour, settle quickly, and allow for a time payment. (Or, better yet, get the spouse to pay.)

• How to stage a house for a custody evaluation that will make you look like a super mom, a Sarah Palin who can change a diaper and run a political campaign without a nanny and still have time to put on lots of eye makeup.

• How to meet a man who is self supporting, doesn’t live with his mother, and has read a book.

• High-paying jobs for women who have been out of the workforce for ten years.

As for where we’d have this conference, which would offer free golf lessons for everyone, plus massages, we’re open to suggestions.