Law Commons^™

Tax Issues In Divorce, Marjorie A. O'Connell

William & Mary Annual Tax Conference

No abstract provided.

Spruce Run News (December 1996), Spruce Run Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Family Fundamentals, Richard C. Reuben

Faculty Publications

On the surface, ML.B. v. S.L.J., No. 95-853, hardly seems worthy of the nation's highest court, in part because our scheme of federalism generally leaves issues such as child custody to state law. But peeling back the layers of this case reveals the potential for a significant ruling on the constitutional treatment of family relationships, fundamental rights and access to courts for civil proceed with a appeals.

Avocats Et Divorce Aux Etats-Unis: La Transformation Des Pratiques Professionnelles, Lynn M. Mather, Craig A. Mcewen, Richard J. Maiman

Journal Articles

Les transformations sociales et les évolutions juridiques qui sont intervenues aux États-Unis depuis les années 60 ont eu de multiples effets sur le travail des avocats en matière de divorce. Le présent article analyse ces transformations en s'appuyant sur des entretiens avec des avocats et sur l'analyse de l'activité des tribunaux dans les États du Maine et du New Hampshire. Il souligne notamment l'importance que revêt l'accroissement du nombre des divorces parmi les couples ayant des ressources moyennes ou faibles. Il décrit aussi la féminisation rapide du barreau, une tendance qui se trouve particulièrement accentuée en ce qui concerne les …

A Feminist Proposal To Bring Back Common Law Marriage, Cynthia Grant Bowman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Focus On Children And The Law, Aviva A. Orenstein

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Intervenor, Women’S Legal Education And Action Fund (Leaf), Goertz V. Gordon, Laura Spitz

Faculty Scholarship

Historically, women have been almost exclusively responsible for the unpaid labour of child care with the assumption of primary child care responsibilities after separation. The courts must analyze each situation to determine whether a joint custody arrangement, in law, is in fact true equal parenting, in roles and responsibilities, or one more akin to sole custody when considering relocation restrictions.

How Do Judges Decide Divorce Cases?: An Empirical Analysis Of Discretionary Decision Making, Marsha Garrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Flesh Of My Flesh But Not My Heir: Unintended Disinheritance, Laura M. Padilla

Faculty Scholarship

This article briefly explains how the laws of intestacy and adoption work together, providing background information on second parent adoptions. It then describes why these laws are inadequate for same sex partners who adopt each others' children. It is impractical to cover statutes throughout the United States, and because I seek legal reform in California, this article focuses on California statutes, with occasional reference to the Uniform Probate Code. However, the problems caused by California's statutes also arise in other states with similar statutes. Therefore, the issues raised in this article, as well as the solutions proposed, are relevant in …

Parents' Rights Vs. Childrens' Interest: The Case Of The Foster Child, Marsha Garrison

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lochner For Women: The Ideology Of Separate Spheres In Muller V. Oregon, Anne Dailey

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Bottoms V. Bottoms: In Whose Best Interest? Analysis Of A Lesbian Mother Child Custody Dispute, Peter N. Swisher

Law Faculty Publications

This Article traces and analyzes the series of legal and factual events leading up to the Virginia Supreme Court's contradictory and controversial decision in Bottoms v. Bottoms.

Welfare Reform, The Child Care Dilemma, And The Tax Code: Family Values, The Wage Labor Market, And The Race-And-Class-Based Double Standard, Mary L. Heen

Law Faculty Publications

In the winter of 1996, Steve Forbes--publisher, heir, and presidential candidate--captured the American imagination with his proposal for a flat tax. But while Mr. Forbes claimed that such a tax would level the economic playing field by eliminating countless loopholes and miles of red tape, his actual proposal betrayed such claims to fairness by overtaxing workers and undertaxing financial capital.

In the face of recent proposals for dramatic and far-reaching tax reform, Taxing America takes a critical look at the way the federal government collects its revenue and exposes the bias at the heart of a system which claims to …

Divining The Deep And Inscrutable: Toward A Gender-Neutral, Child-Centered Approach To Child Name Change Proceedings, Lisa Kelly

Articles

While largely a matter of social convention, the surnames that children bear have been regulated by the law as well. In certain circumstances, the law has attempted to regulate the surnames given to children at birth, but more often the law has come into play when a change of name is sought for the child: It is at this point that the law dictates to family members what it values and what it will forbid as the law goes about the business of enforcing societal norms. This article will look at the role of naming and name changing and the …

What About The Children? Are Family Lawyers The Same (Ethically) As Criminal Lawyers? A Morality Play, Robert H. Aronson

Articles

A fictional account of a lawyer, representing a woman in a divorce case, who learns from her client that her live-in boyfriend has hit her and her five-year-old daughter. Is her ethical duty to protect the child greater than her responsibility to maintain the attorney-client privilege. She discusses the matter with two evidence professors in search of a solution.

God Bless The Child: Poor Children, Parens Patriae, And A State Obligation To Provide Assistance, Kay P. Kindred

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Children We Abandon: Religious Exemptions To Child Welfare And Education Law As Denials Of Equal Protection To Children Of Religious Objectors, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

The story of children who die because their parents, in observance of their own religious principles, withhold conventional medical treatment from them is a familiar one. In this Article, James G. Dwyer shows that the phenomenon of parents denying secular benefits to their children for religious reasons goes far beyond these few highly publicized cases, extending into the realm of education as well as medical care. Moreover, Dr. Dwyer shows that the federal and state governments endorse this practice by statutorily exempting 'religious objector' parents from otherwise generally applicable compulsory child care and education laws. He argues that courts addressing …

Give Them A Sword: Representing Parents In Child Custody Cases, William Tabac

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

First, this Essay demonstrates that, because the "best interests" standard that states use in awarding custody between parents is so arbitrary, lawyers cannot effectively protect the parental rights of their clients. Next, this Essay contends that, because fit parents will do anything to preserve their bond with their children, the state not only expects them to commit perjury to protect their parental rights, but encourages them to do so. Finally, this Essay argues that lawyers should lay out all possible strategies to their clients even if doing so invites parents to perjure themselves.

What If? The Legal Consequences Of Marriage And The Legal Needs Of Lesbian And Gay Male Couples, David L. Chambers

Articles

Laws that treat married persons in a different manner than they treat single persons permeate nearly every field of social regulation in this country - taxation, torts, evidence, social welfare, inheritance, adoption, and on and on. In this article I inquire into the patterns these laws form and the central benefits and obligations that marriage entails, a task few scholars have undertaken in recent years. I have done so because same-sex couples, a large group not previously eligible to marry under the laws of any American jurisdiction, may be on the brink of securing the opportunity to do so in …

Custody And Conduct: How The Law Fails Lesbian And Gay Parents And Their Children, Julie Shapiro

Faculty Articles

When parents dispute child custody, courts determine their rights by using a "best interests of the child" analysis. In this context, courts consider a host of factors, including parental sexuality. When considering the suitability of custody for a lesbian or gay parents, most courts employ a nexus test - one that requires a showing of a nexus between parental sexuality and the well-being of the child. A smaller number continue to use a harsher test that disqualifies lesbian and gay parents under a per se rule. This article argues that closer examination reveals that even the apparently more liberal nexus …

Guardians: A Research Note, Chris Guthrie, Lawrence M. Friedman, Joanna L. Grossman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Guardianship goes back quite far in legal history; it has been a feature of American law since the colonial period. Something like guardianship is a necessity in a system that recognizes private ownership of property, while dividing the world into those who are, and those who are not, sui juris-that is, fully capable of acting on their own. The boundaries between these two domains can be quite indistinct. Defining who is insane or incompetent can be especially problematic because these categories are socially and culturally variable. Most people committed in 1900, for example, would hardly be considered insane today; they …

The Kiddie Tax: A Nuisance Solution To A Nonexistent Problem (Special Tax Symposium), Richard C.E. Beck

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

The Road Less Taken: Annulment At The Turn Of The Century, Chris Guthrie, Joanna Grossman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

It is hardly surprising that certain legal institutions--adoption, wills, and guardianship--have lasted through the centuries. Each meets a different, seemingly timeless need: providing parenting for orphans or abandoned children, distributing property at death, and dealing with legal incapacity, respectively. Similarly, divorce, though it appeared somewhat later, took hold and persisted for an obvious reason-the increasing demand for a legally sanctioned way to terminate broken marriages. The endurance of annulment, however, particularly in the face of increasingly liberalized divorce laws, defies easy explanation. The existence of annulment prior to the mid-nineteenth century is easily explained. Until 1857, England was a "divorceless …

Welfare Reform And Child Care: A Proposal For State Legislation, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

The shortage of subsidized child care creates three problems. First, it contributes to underemployment because job options are greatly reduced when child care is unavailable. Second, it erodes the wages of parents who do work because low-income families spend a debilitating percentage of their earnings to pay for the care of their children. Third, it relegates many children to poor quality child care settings, compromising their academic potential and social well-being, and placing them at risk for delinquency and dependency. Part I of this article discusses the current paucity of quality, affordable child care, and the effects of this shortage. …

Sweep Searches--The Rights Of The Community, And The Guarantees Of The Fourth And First Amendments: Moms Of The Chicago Public Housing Complex, Revisit Your Civil And Constitutional Rights And Save Your Babies, Lundy Langston

Journal Publications

African-American babies are an endangered species. They have the potential to live to the ripe old age of fourteen. We are singing new songs of overcoming-overcoming the loss of our babies. However, it's the same song: the lyrics are Black, and the music is, as always, White. Across the nation let us hold hands, let us gather together, let us save our babies. Will the music, the lyrics of our collective songs, save our babies? Is there a collective voice? There must be a collective voice if we are to save our babies and WE must save them if we …

'Irresponsible' Reproduction, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, there have been countless calls for reversing the rise in irresponsibility in American society.' Calls for restoring personal responsibility in both private and political life sound from both of the major political parties as well as from various cultural critics, pundits, and academics. 2 Proponents of a return to personal responsibility wage their battle on numerous fronts, advocating a cultural revolution, a moral revival, and a recovery of "virtue" to bring about a reformation of attitudes and behaviors regarded as troublesome. 3 Many voices now urge that law and public policy should encourage, or require, personal responsibility …

Parent Education As A Distinct Field Of Practice: The Agenda For The Future, Peter Salam, Andrew Schepard, Stephen W. Schlissel

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

The proliferation of educational programs for separated and divorcing parents has created an emerging field of practice. This article examines core questions of professional responsibility, accountability, standards, and practices that must be addressed to advance the development of the field.

Education programs for separated and divorcing parents have captured widespread attention. New programs are being established at a rapid pace. Increasingly, legislation and court rules require parents to attend an education program (Biondi, 1995). Newspapers, magazines, and television networks- including the New York limes, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, CBS, NBC, and CNN-have all reported on what Time Magazine …

Book Review Of State Legislative Summary, 1994: Children, Youth, And Family Issues, James S. Heller

Library Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

The Two-Parent Family In The Liberal State: The Case For Selective Subsidies, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Uniform Adoption Act's Health Disclosure Provisions: A Model That Should Not Be Overlooked, Marianne Blair

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.