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Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Family Law

The Law's Duty To Promote The Kinship System: Implications For Assisted Reproductive Techniques And For Proposed Redefinitions Of Familial Relations, Scott T. Fitzgibbon Dec 2014

The Law's Duty To Promote The Kinship System: Implications For Assisted Reproductive Techniques And For Proposed Redefinitions Of Familial Relations, Scott T. Fitzgibbon

Scott T. FitzGibbon

Kinship relations, in our society and in most, are organized systematically. That is to say, each kinship connection is constructed, conducted, and considered, not in isolation but by reference to the others. Your uncle is your father’s brother, in just about the same way as your own sibling is your brother and your children are one another’s brothers and sisters. Your spouse is the mother or father of your children, in just about the same way as your mother and father are your parents and the parents of your siblings. One’s beliefs and expectations about what each kinship relationship entails …


Steps Toward Safety: Improving Systemic And Community Responses For Families Experiencing Domestic Violence, Leigh Goodmark, Ann Rosewater Jul 2014

Steps Toward Safety: Improving Systemic And Community Responses For Families Experiencing Domestic Violence, Leigh Goodmark, Ann Rosewater

Leigh S. Goodmark

This report is designed to mine the lessons learned from the research and reforms in child welfare and domestic violence, as well as explore possibilities for the next generation of innovation.


Law Is The Answer? Do We Know That For Sure? Questioning The Efficacy Of Legal Interventions For Battered Women, Leigh Goodmark May 2014

Law Is The Answer? Do We Know That For Sure? Questioning The Efficacy Of Legal Interventions For Battered Women, Leigh Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

No abstract provided.


A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence And The Legal System, Leigh Goodmark May 2014

A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence And The Legal System, Leigh Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

The development of a legal regime to combat domestic violence in the United States has been lauded as one of the feminist movement’s greatest triumphs. But, Leigh Goodmark argues, the resulting system is deeply flawed in ways that prevent it from assisting many women subjected to abuse. The current legal response to domestic violence is excessively focused on physical violence; this narrow definition of abuse fails to provide protection from behaviors that are profoundly damaging, including psychological, economic, and reproductive abuse. The system uses mandatory policies that deny women subjected to abuse autonomy and agency, substituting the state’s priorities for …


Reframing Domestic Violence Law And Policy: An Anti-Essentialist Proposal, Leigh Goodmark May 2014

Reframing Domestic Violence Law And Policy: An Anti-Essentialist Proposal, Leigh Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

This Article focuses on a central failure in domestic violence law and policy reform—the creation of a body of law and set of policies based on outmoded notions of what domestic violence is, the identities of the women who experience violence, the identities of their partners, and what such women need and want. The theoretical underpinnings of domestic violence law and policy largely are to blame for this excessively narrow and problematic view of domestic violence.


When Is A Battered Woman Not A Battered Woman? When She Fights Back, Leigh Goodmark May 2014

When Is A Battered Woman Not A Battered Woman? When She Fights Back, Leigh Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

No abstract provided.


Parenting In The Face Of Prejudice: The Need For Representation For Parents With Mental Illness, Leigh Goodmark May 2014

Parenting In The Face Of Prejudice: The Need For Representation For Parents With Mental Illness, Leigh Goodmark

Leigh S. Goodmark

No abstract provided.


Medical Paternalism And The Rule Of Law: A Reply To Dr. Relman, Charles Baron Aug 2013

Medical Paternalism And The Rule Of Law: A Reply To Dr. Relman, Charles Baron

Charles H. Baron

In this Article, Professor Baron challenges the position taken recently by Dr. Arnold Relman in this journal that the 1977 Saikewicz decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts was incorrect in calling for routine judicial resolution of decisions whether to provide life-prolonging treatment to terminally ill incompetent patients. First, Professor Baron argues that Dr. Relman's position that doctors should make such decisions is based upon an outmoded, paternalistic view of the doctor-patient relationship. Second, he points out the importance of guaranteeing to such decisions the special qualities of process which characterize decision making by courts and which are not …


Assuring "Detached But Passionate Investigation And Decision": The Role Of Guardians Ad Litem In Saikewicz-Type Cases, Charles Baron Aug 2013

Assuring "Detached But Passionate Investigation And Decision": The Role Of Guardians Ad Litem In Saikewicz-Type Cases, Charles Baron

Charles H. Baron

The author focuses this Article upon the aspect of the Saikewicz decision which determines that the kind of "proxy consent" question involved in that case required for its decision "the process of detached but passionate investigation and decision that forms the ideal on which the judicial branch of government was created." This aspect of the decision has drawn much criticism from the medical community on the ground that it embroils what doctors believe to be a medical question in the adversarial processes of the court system. The author criticizes the decision from an entirely opposite perspective, arguing that the court's …


Navigating Gender In Modern Intimate Partnership Law, Alicia Kelly Apr 2012

Navigating Gender In Modern Intimate Partnership Law, Alicia Kelly

Alicia B. Kelly

With women edging up to become half the workforce, claims of women’s economic empowerment now abound. But the reality is that gender equality has not been mainstreamed. The truly eye-opening new data is how marginalized and partial many women’s attachment to the labor force continues to be. Simultaneously, another misleading narrative also circulates—that of separateness—of disconnected individualism. In the context of intimate partnership and feminist legal theory, this Article pushes back against these accounts and demonstrates their problematic link. Contrary to the storylines, many women’s lives in fact remain characterized by deep bonds with partners, children, and extended family, and …


Better Equity For Elders: Basing Couples' Economic Relations Law On Sharing And Caring, Alicia Kelly Dec 2011

Better Equity For Elders: Basing Couples' Economic Relations Law On Sharing And Caring, Alicia Kelly

Alicia B. Kelly

This essay considers how to achieve better equity in aging through laws governing couples' economic relations. Focusing on family law's contributions to economic vulnerabilities among older people, I critique contemporary law for its hyper-individualistic conception of intra-couple relationships and also for its too narrow and marriage-centric approach to regulating couples' collaborative economic activities. These deficits contribute to inequalities between men and women and between married and unmarried couples. Modern couple's law frequently disadvantages women by neglecting the value and impacts of sharing and caring behaviors within the family. This helps impoverish women across the life cycle, often acutely affecting older …


Money Matters In Marriage: Unmasking Interdependence In Ongoing Spousal Economic Relations, Alicia B. Kelly Dec 2008

Money Matters In Marriage: Unmasking Interdependence In Ongoing Spousal Economic Relations, Alicia B. Kelly

Alicia B. Kelly

This Article presents a rare exploration of the interactions among money, marriage and law while the relationship is ongoing. Using insights on the relational landscape from the social sciences as a lens, I examine the law’s regulation of spousal economic relations and its account of and potential impact within a functioning marriage. Building on my previous work, my claim is that the law governing money in marriage should be grounded on a distinctive and clarified model of partnership marriage that understands the relationship to be of equal persons who join forces to share the burdens and benefits of a shared …