Law Commons^™

Mandatory Family Mediation And The Settlement Mission: A Feminist Critique, Noel Semple

Law Publications

North American family law conflicts are very often brought to mediation, in which a neutral third party attempts to bring about a voluntary resolution of the spouses’ dispute. Family mediation has many enthusiastic supporters, and has in many jurisdictions been made a mandatory precursor to traditional litigation. However, it has also given rise to a potent feminist critique, which identifies power imbalance and domestic violence as sources of exploitation and unjust mediated outcomes. This article summarizes the feminist critique of family mediation, and assesses the efforts of contemporary mediation practice to respond to it. Even in the absence of formal …

Naming The Judicial Terrorist: An Exposé Of An Abuser's Successful Use Of A Judicial Proceeding For Continued Domestic Violence, Donna King

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Teaching Social Justice Lawyering: Systematically Including Community Legal Education In Law School Clinics, Margaret Martin Barry, A. Rachel Camp, Margaret E. Johnson, Catherine F. Klein, Lisa V. Martin

All Faculty Scholarship

There is a body of literature on clinical legal theory that urges a focus in clinics beyond the single client to an explicit teaching of social justice lawyering. This Article adds to this emerging body of work by discussing the valuable role community legal education plays as a vehicle for teaching skills and values essential to single client representation and social justice lawyering. The Article examines the theoretical underpinnings of clinical legal education, community organizing and community education and how they influenced the authors’ design and implementation of community legal education within their clinics. It then discusses two projects designed …

Look Before You Leap: Court System Triage Of Family Law Cases Involving Intimate Partner Violence, Nancy Ver Steegh

Faculty Scholarship

Family courts are increasingly interested in matching parties with appropriate dispute resolution processes and related services. For many parties, especially those who are self-represented, triage of cases could be helpful and efficient. Nevertheless, implementation of triage in complex cases may bring unintended repercussions, and in the spirit of averting these, this Article identifies and discusses challenging issues that become apparent when triage systems are viewed through the lens of intimate partner violence.

Some questions about triage in the context of intimate partner violence were raised at the Wingspread Conference on Domestic Violence and Family Courts and explored more fully by …

Intimate Terrorism And Technology: There's An App For That, Justine A. Dunlap

Faculty Publications

Technology enhances the ability of the domestic violence perpetrator. It also holds the promise of assisting domestic violence survivors in their quest for safety. This is true in practical, daily ways and is becoming increasingly true in the legal treatment of these cases. Perpetrators can use technology to stalk and find their victims; survivors can use it to access necessary information to get away from their batterers. Laws are being amended to take into account cyber-enhanced domestic violence techniques. Domestic or intimate terrorists are among the class of criminals targeted for use of GPS monitoring. This article discusses the way …

Surviving Castle Rock: The Human Rights Of Domestic Violence, Max D. Siegel

Student Articles and Papers

In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales and held that Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to police enforcement of a restraining order. The decision highlighted the Court’s reluctance to recognize citizens’ affirmative rights, fortifying a deeply ingrained conceptualization of the Constitution of the United States as a “Negative Constitution” that creates a government with restraints on its actions and extremely limited obligations to its citizens. In August 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a report publicizing its finding that by failing to take affirmative measures to …

Consumer Rights Screening Tool For Domestic Violence Advocates And Lawyers, Leah A. Plunkett, Erica A. Sussman

Law Faculty Scholarship

The information is this document is intended for use by advocates and attorneys working with survivors of domestic violence in understanding the common types of consumer problems faced by the survivors. The document provides an overview of the common consumer issues faced by survivors and offers solid guidance on how advocates and attorneys can identify these issues when working the survivors. The report begins with an overview of the role of economic abuse in cases of domestic violence. This is followed by a brief look at common consumer issues faced by survivors that include managing household income and expenses, credit …

Renegotiating The Social Contract, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Publications

This review of The Supportive State: Families, Government and America’s Political Ideals highlights Maxine Eichner’s important theoretical contributions to both liberal political theory and feminist theory, applauding her success in reforming liberalism to account for dependency, vulnerability, and families. The review then considers some implications of Eichner’s proposals and their likely reception among feminists. It concludes that The Supportive State is a sound and inspiring response to recent calls that feminist theory move from being strictly a school of criticism to developing a theory of governance.

Introduction: Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) V. United States: Implementation, Litigation, And Mobilization Strategies, Caroline Bettinger-López

Articles

No abstract provided.

Representing Children At The Intersection Of Domestic Violence And Child Protection, Annette Appell, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

Reflecting evolving norms surrounding the legitimacy of intimate violence, the law has made steady progress toward acknowledging that domestic violence is not a private family matter, but instead demands public assistance to help survivors of that violence protect themselves and their children. Most recently, child advocates, juvenile court judges, and domestic violence advocates have joined in a concerted effort to address the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child abuse and neglect, coordinate responses and remedies among the various court systems, and develop methods to avoid re-victimizing mothers and children through legal process. This article traces civil remedies and barriers domestic …