Family Law Commons^™

Prompting Deliberation About Nanotechnology: Information, Instruction, And Discussion Effects On Individual Engagement And Knowledge, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Myiah J. Hutchens, Peter Muhlberger, Alan Tomkins

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

Deliberative (and educational) theories typically predict knowledge gains will be enhanced by information structure and discussion. In two studies, we experimentally manipulated key features of deliberative public engagement (information, instructions, and discussion) and measured impacts on cognitive-affective engagement and knowledge about nanotechnology. We also examined the direct and moderating impacts of individual differences in need for cognition and gender. Findings indicated little impact of information (organized by topic or by pro-con relevance). Instructions (prompts to think critically) decreased engagement in Study 1, and increased it in Study 2, but did not impact postknowledge. Group discussion had strong positive benefits for …

There Are No Ordinary People: Christian Humanism And Christian Legal Thought, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This short essay is a contribution to a volume celebrating a new casebook, "Christian Legal Thought: Materials and Cases", edited by Profs. Patrick McKinley Brennan and William S. Brewbaker.

Gender And Nation-Building: Family Law As Legal Architecture, Tracy E. Higgins, Rachel P. Fink

Maine Law Review

In considering the legal architecture of nation-building, we might most readily think of public law as our subject insofar as it governs the relationship between the individual and the state, and establishes the institutions of governance and the sources and limits of their power. The essays in this volume, in large part, track this instinct in that they concern themselves with fields such as constitutional law, criminal law, and public international law. Closer to the margin of public and private law are essays dealing with various dimensions of the modern regulatory state, including banking and commercial transactions. In each of …

Turner In The Trenches: A Study Of How Turner V. Rogers Affected Child Support Contempt Proceedings, Elizabeth Patterson

Faculty Publications

In its 2011 ruling in Turner v. Rogers, the Supreme Court held that a nonpaying child support obligor may not be incarcerated in a civil contempt proceeding if he did not have the ability to pay the ordered support or the purge necessary to regain his freedom. The Turner case arose in South Carolina, a state in which civil contempt proceedings are a routine part of the child support enforcement process. The author observed child support contempt proceedings in South Carolina both before and after the Turner decision to assess the extent to which indigent obligors were being held in …

The Pro Bono Collaborative Project Spotlight 09-06-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Pro Bono Collaborative Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

You Are Now Entering The School Zone, Proceed With Caution: Educators, Arbitration, & Children’S Rights, Raquel Muniz

Arbitration Law Review

No abstract provided.

Report Of The Law Reform Committee On The 1996 Hague Convention On The Protection Of Children, Valerie Thean, Debbie Ong, Audrey Lim, Thian Yee Sze, Yvonne Tan, Tiong Min Yeo

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Modern litigation between spouses regarding their children is ofteninternational. Such cross-border disputes are especially common inSingapore, as an international commercial centre with a diverse andcosmopolitan society. More importantly, Singaporeans are becoming anincreasingly mobile labour force, working in international businesses.Orders made by Singapore courts involving local parties and local childrenwill increasingly require recognition and enforcement overseas.

Assisted Reproduction Inequality And Marriage Equality, Seema Mohapatra J.D., Mph

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Kennedy declared that “marriage is fundamental under the Constitution and [should] apply with equal force to same-sex couples.” This Article examines how the advent of marriage equality may impact the rights of same-sex couples to have biological children via assisted reproduction and surrogacy. Specifically, this Article points out the ways that the Obergefell decision affects the law of infertility. By the law of infertility, I mean the laws that require insurance coverage of infertility treatments and other assisted reproductive technologies (“ART”). Because same-sex couples are not able to have biological children with each other …

Obergefell’S Ambiguous Impact On Legal Parentage, Leslie Joan Harris

Chicago-Kent Law Review

For more than thirty years, the central questions of the law of parentage have been when and to what extent determinations of legal parenthood should be based on biological relationship, marriage to a child’s biological parent, or functioning as or intending to be a parent. In Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court endorsed the claim that children whose parents are married are better off socially and legally than nonmarital children; its language could easily be taken to support legal rules that encourage or prefer childrearing within marriage. On the other hand, the Court’s argument assumes that the same-sex couple—both members—are …

Romantic Discrimination And Children, Solangel Maldonado

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In recent years, social scientists have used online dating sites to study the role of race in the dating and marriage market. This research has revealed a racialized and gendered hierarchy that disproportionately excludes African-Americans and Asian-American men. For decades, other researchers have studied the risks and outcomes for children who are raised in single-parent homes as compared to children raised by married parents.

Drawing on these studies, this Essay explores how racial preferences in the dating and marriage market potentially disadvantage the children of middle-class African-American women who lack or reject opportunities to intermarry relative to children of married …

Quacking Like A Duck? Functional Parenthood Doctrine And Same-Sex Parents, Katharine K. Baker

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This Article unpacks the relationship between the functional parenthood doctrine, constitutionally protected parental autonomy rights and intent-to-parent tests as they are applied in same-sex parenting relationships. It argues that, with the advent of same-sex marriage and second parent adoption, the functional parent doctrine is unnecessary and ultimately counterproductive to anyone interested in expanding legal recognition of non-traditional family forms. The functional parent doctrine asks courts to employ traditional understandings of parenthood (“Who acted like a parent?”) in assigning parental status.

These traditional understandings are usually, if not inevitably, dyadic, heteronormative, genetic, and gendered. In practice, the functional parent doctrine undermines …

Reforming The Processes For Challenging Voluntary Acknowledgments Of Paternity, Jeffrey A. Parness, David A. Saxe

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Voluntary acknowledgements of paternity (VAPs) significantly determine male legal parentage at birth for many children born of sex to unwed mothers in the United States. VAP processes are chiefly dictated by the federal Social Security Act, which places certain mandates on states participating in federally-subsidized welfare programs. These processes include norms on effective VAP establishments and on VAP disestablishments, either via early rescissions (within sixty days) by signatories or via later contests (after sixty days) by challengers, including signatories. The norms are driven by the Act’s desire to increase reimbursements of state child welfare payments from unwed fathers regardless of …

Parents, Babies, And More Parents, June Carbone, Naomi Cahn

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This Article makes two basic points. First, the three-parent family is here. Once states accept that parenthood does not depend on either biology or marriage, then three parents are inevitable unless the states go out of their way to rule that adults who otherwise meet their definitions of parenthood will not be recognized. Second, as three-parent family recognition increases, there are difficult questions on how to manage the status of each parent. This difficulty arises because the two major trends in the family law—the recognition of a multiplicity of family forms and the insistence on parental equality—are on a collision …

Grasping Fatherhood In Abortion And Adoption, Malinda L. Seymore

Malinda L. Seymore

Biology makes a mother, but it does not make a father. While a mother is a legal parent by reason of her biological relationship with her child, a father is not a legal parent unless he takes affirmative steps to grasp fatherhood. Being married to the mother at the time of conception or at the time of birth is one of those affirmative steps. But if he is not married to the mother, he must do far more before he will be legally recognized as a father. Biology is often presented as a sufficient reason for this dichotomy--it is easy …

The American Child Welfare System: The Inconspicuous Vehicle For Social Exclusion, Zachary Auspitz

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Polarization Of Reproductive And Parental Decision-Making, Jamie R. Abrams

Florida State University Law Review

Women’s abortion and parental decision-making in child rearing are constructed as polarized methods of decision-making in law, politics, and society. Women’s abortion decision-making is understood as myopic and individualistic. Parental decision-making is understood as sacrificial and selfless. This polarization leaves reproductive decision-making isolated, marginalized, and vulnerable while parental decision-making is essentialized, protected, and revered. Both framings are inaccurate and problematic. A unified family decision-making framework that aligns abortion decision-making and parental decision-making reveals that both forms of decision-making are more multi-dimensional, relational, and family-centered than currently understood. This Article exposes the ground to be gained by crossing longstanding boundaries in …

Yours, Mine, Or Ours: Resolving Frozen Embryo Disputes Through Genetics, Carinne Jaeger

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this Note provides some background on the current frameworks being used by courts in dual-progenitor disputes, while Part II presents the only two cases to deal with sole-genetic progenitor disputes and details how the courts conducted their analyses. Part III explains how courts establish legal parentage and how these legal parentage standards apply to frozen embryo disputes, specifically ones that involve only one genetic progenitor. Part IV proposes a new genetic framework to assist in the resolution of these issues. This Note concludes with a recommendation for future legislative intervention to aid in the widespread and uniform …

Reflection: How Multiracial Lives Matter 50 Years After Loving, Lauren Sudeall Lucas

Faculty Publications By Year

Black Lives Matter. All Lives Matter. These two statements are both true, but connote very different sentiments in our current political reality. To further complicate matters, in this short reflection piece, I query how multiracial lives matter in the context of this heated social and political discussion about race. As a multiracial person committed to racial justice and sympathetic both to those pushing for recognition of multiracial identity and to those who worry such recognition may undermine larger movements, these are questions I have long grappled with both professionally and personally. Of course, multiracial lives matter - but do they …

Sieglein V. Schmidt: Securing The Legitimacy Of All Children Created Through Assisted Reproductive Technology, Gabrielle C. Phillips

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Pro Bono Collaborative Project Spotlight 05-23-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Pro Bono Collaborative Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Grasping Fatherhood In Abortion And Adoption, Malinda L. Seymore

Faculty Scholarship

Biology makes a mother, but it does not make a father. While a mother is a legal parent by reason of her biological relationship with her child, a father is not a legal parent unless he takes affirmative steps to grasp fatherhood. Being married to the mother at the time of conception or at the time of birth is one of those affirmative steps. But if he is not married to the mother, he must do far more before he will be legally recognized as a father. Biology is often presented as a sufficient reason for this dichotomy--it is easy …

Marriage, Millennials, And Massive Student Loan Debt, Victoria J. Haneman

Concordia Law Review

The purpose of this Essay is to explore the idea that the student loan indebtedness bearing down upon the majority of today’s college graduates creates economic insecurity that forces borrowers to reject or significantly delay marriage, and that burden, taken together with an already lukewarm Millennial attitude, may not bode well for the future of the institution. Record numbers of Millennials have rejected the traditional path of marriage-homeownership-children, and the percentage of Millennials who will marry by age 40 is projected to fall lower than the figure for any previous generation of Americans. To the extent that marriage is an …

A Longitudinal And Experimental Study Of The Impact Of Knowledge On The Bases Of Institutional Trust, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Christopher D. Kimbrough, Ellie Shockley, Tess M.S. Neal, Mitchel Herian, Joseph A. Hamm, Brian H. Bornstein, Alan Tomkins

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

This study examined a knowledge-centered theory of institutional trust development. In the context of trust in water regulatory institutions, the moderating impact of knowledge was tested to determine if there were longitudinal changes in the bases of institutional trust as a function of increases in knowledge about a target institution. We hypothesized that as people learn about an institution with which they were previously unfamiliar, they begin to form more nuanced perceptions, distinguishing the new institution from other institutions and relying less upon their generalized trust to estimate their trust in that institution. Prior to having specific, differential information about …

Professor Breaks Ground With Journal On Sexual Violence And Exploitation, Joseph Essig, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

New Uri Journal Explores Sexual Exploitation, G. Wayne Miller, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Uri Professor Launches Online Journal About Sexual Exploitation, Violence, Slavery, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

Obergefell’S Impact On Functional Families, Raymond C. O'Brien

Catholic University Law Review

More than forty percent of children born in America are born to unmarried parents and only half of all cohabitating adults in America are currently married. While many children are born to single parents, others are part of the two-person unmarried cohabiting functional family paradigm. What is the status of these children?

This article examines the changing paradigm of parental status, specifically vis-à-vis homosexual couples with children, and the rights of the non-biological parent after separation. This article examines the changes in law in regards to unmarried parents leading up to the Uniform Parentage Act. It describes the equitable remedies …

Newroom: From The Bronx To Haiti: Asb 3-16-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Applying Motivational Interviewing To Parenting Act Mediation: The Promise Of The Process., Kristen M. Blankley, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Kathryn Speck

Lisa PytlikZillig Publications

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a research-based method of helping people engage in behavior change. MI tools and strategies have been used successfully to help people tackle drug and alcohol addiction, weight loss, and other unhealthy behaviors. MI methods aim to uncover and support a person's desire to change while simultaneously respecting an individual's autonomy. Historically, Ml has been employed in support settings, such as counselors working with clients. In Nebraska, probation officers now employ MI practices to help encourage positive changes while still maintaining accountability if people choose not to follow the terms of their probation.

Mediation is all about …

A-R-C-G- Is Not The Solution For Domestic Violence Victims, Lizbeth Chow

Catholic University Law Review

For over fifteen years, U.S. immigration authorities and courts have grappled with the idea of domestic violence as a basis for asylum. But in 2014, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) issued a decision indicating that victims of domestic violence may qualify for asylum. This Comment assesses the BIA’s decision and concludes that it is ultimately ineffective. This Comment further suggests that the only practical solution is for Congress to intervene. This Comment first provides a brief historical overview of asylum law to help elucidate the purpose of asylum law. It also provides an in-depth review of the elements needed …