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Family Law

Columbia Law School

Series

American Law Institute (ALI)

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Parental Rights Rhetoric Versus Parental Rights Doctrine, Clare Huntington Jan 2024

Parental Rights Rhetoric Versus Parental Rights Doctrine, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Josh Gupta-Kagan observes that the Restatement of Children and the Law does not transform the law of child abuse and neglect. As he contends, this is neither a feature nor a bug. It is simply the reality of a restatement, which can only nudge, not reform, the law. I agree with Gupta-Kagan that only political will, not the American Law Institute (ALI), can fix the significant problems with the family regulation system. For advocates and scholars — including both of us — who seek structural and doctrinal change, the ALI has principles projects, and there is a broader ecosystem …


Restating The Law In A Child Wellbeing Framework, Elizabeth S. Scott Jan 2024

Restating The Law In A Child Wellbeing Framework, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The Restatement of Children and the Law is scheduled for formal adoption by the American Law Institute in 2024. When this project was first proposed, it was met with some skepticism, on the view that the regulation of children was not a coherent field of law. But after eight years of work on this Restatement, the Reporters have produced a comprehensive account of the law’s treatment of children and clarified that it is, indeed, an integrated and coherent area of law. Our work has uncovered a deep structure and logic that shapes the legal regulation of children in the family, …


Regulatory Fictions: On Marriage And Countermarriage, Elizabeth F. Emens Jan 2011

Regulatory Fictions: On Marriage And Countermarriage, Elizabeth F. Emens

Faculty Scholarship

Debates about marriage currently capture much public attention. Scholars have pushed beyond the question of whether gays are worthy of marriage to ask whether marriage is worthy of gays. The present moment of questioning marriage in its current form may be brief Thus, we should take this opportunity to imagine the widest possible range of alternatives to our current marriage regime – what I call countermarriage regimes. This Essay draws on two unlikely sources of legal innovation to expand our thinking about marriage alternatives: literature and anti-gay law. Literature offers an array of countermarriage regimes, including exploding marriage, three-strikes marriage, …


Domestic Partnerships, Implied Contracts, And Law Reform, Elizabeth S. Scott Jan 2006

Domestic Partnerships, Implied Contracts, And Law Reform, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The domestic partnership chapter of the Principles is the shortest chapter, but, as the contributions to this volume suggest, among the most interesting to many people. The legal regulation of informal intimate unions generally and particularly the Principles' approach of creating a status that carries the legal rights and obligations of marriage between cohabiting parties have generated considerable debate. In some quarters, the domestic partnership provisions are admired as an effective mechanism to protect dependent partners in marriage-like unions who otherwise may be unable to establish claims to property and support when their relationships end. Others praise the Principles for …