Law Commons^™

The Child-Welfare System And The Limits Of Determinacy, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Robert Mnookin’s article, Child-Custody Adjudication: Judicial Functions in the Face of Indeterminacy, is a classic. His insights into the substance and process of family law have influenced scholars for nearly four decades. This essay, written for a symposium marking the upcoming anniversary of the article, demonstrates that Congress adopted many of Mnookin’s proposals to introduce greater determinacy into the child welfare system. And yet the problems he described nearly forty years ago sound all too familiar today. After engaging in a detailed analysis of the reforms, I argue that with the evidence on determinacy now in hand, it is time …