Family Law Commons^™

Gay Divorce, Tracy A. Thomas

Tracy A. Thomas

Same-sex marriage is now legal in thirteen states and sixteen countries. The question increasingly being asked is how these couples can divorce. For those who remain in their home state or in a marriage equality state, the divorce process should be the same as for any other marriage. The problem arises because people are transient; couples often relocate for jobs or family, or they initially traveled out of their home state for the marriage. “In a highly mobile society, state bans on same-sex marriage have in many cases made untying the knot far harder than tying it in the first ...

From Sex For Pleasure To Sex For Parenthood: How The Law Manufactures Mothers, Beth A. Burkstrand-Reid

College of Law, Faculty Publications

As soon as sperm enter a woman, so do law and politics, or so the decades-long disputes surrounding abortion suggest. Now, however, renewed debates surrounding contraceptives show legal and political interference with women’s sexual and reproductive autonomy may actually precede the sperm. This Article argues that, increasingly, women even thinking about having sex are defined socially and legally as “mothers.” Via this broad definition of who is a “mother,” the State extends its reach into women’s decision-making throughout their reproductive lifetime.

This Article argues that the State simultaneously devalues women’s choices to have sex for pleasure, which ...

Don't Stop The Clock: Why Equitable Tolling Should Not Be Read Into The Hague Convention On International Child Abduction, Nicole Fontaine

Boston College Law Review

Article 12 of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction allows an abducting parent to avoid the return of the child if the parent can show that more than a year has passed since the wrongful removal or retention of the child, and that the child is well settled in his or her new environment. In cases where concealment of the abducted child prevented a parent from filing a claim within one year of the abduction, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits have applied equitable tolling to delay the start ...

"Amorphous Federalism" And The Supreme Court's Marriage Cases, David B. Cruz

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

This is a draft of an article forthcoming in the Loyola Law Review Supreme Court issue. It addresses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, the two cases in the October 2012 term that took up issues of marriage rights of same sex couples. Part I examines the Supreme Court’s opinion in Perry. It summarizes the litigation; teases out divergent views of the relevance of federalism for the Court’s standing ruling in the case; identifies the problematic constitutional underpinnings of the Perry dissenters’ views of federal court standing, which ...

32. Lyon, T.D., Wandrey, L., Ahern, E.C, Licht, R., Sim, M. & Quas, J.A. (In Press). Eliciting Maltreated And Non-Maltreated Children’S Transgression Disclosures: Narrative Practice Rapport Building And A Putative Confession. Child Development., Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

A Balancing Act? The Rights Of Donor-Conceived Children To Know Their Biological Origins, Brigitte Clark

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Modern Reformation: An Overview Of New York’S Domestic Relations Law Overhaul, Meaghan E. Howard

Touro Law Review

With nearly half of all first time marriages ending in divorce, there is no wonder that legal reform in the area of domestic relations law has recently taken the State of New York by storm. New York held onto the relic of fault-based divorce for an unusually long period of time, in part due to notions of marital sanctity and reinforcement of the traditional nuclear family. On the other hand, the State, after succumbing to the battle over no-fault divorce, quickly adopted a progressive social and legislative policy by validating the desire of same-sex couples to marry.

Maneuvering Modernity: Family Law As A Battle Field In Colonial Taiwan (1895-1945), Yun-Ru Chen

2013 New England Association for Asian Studies Conference

Twenty five years after launching its own legal modernization in response to Western imperialism, Japan imposed a modern legal system upon its first colony, Taiwan. In accordance with the “respecting old custom” colonial policy, the Japanese created a system called Taiwanese customary law, a mixture of imperial Chinese laws, local customs and European legal concepts, and gradually implemented its newly adopted European-style Meiji Civil Code (1898). However, even since the late 1910s when the colonial policy changed into “full-flag assimilation,” family law remained an exception to the transplantation of Japanese laws. That did not, however, mean that family law was ...

How Parents Are Made: A Response To Discrimination In Baby Making: The Unconstitutional Treatment Of Prospective Parents Through Surrogacy, Kimberly M. Mutcherson

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

Hierarchies Of Discrimination In Baby Making: A Response To Professor Carroll, Radhika Rao

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

Mothering For Money: Regulating Commercial Intimacy, Surrogacy, Adoption,, Pamela Laufer-Ukeles

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

New Thinking On Commercial Surrogacy, Richard F. Storrow

Indiana Law Journal

Roundtable on Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technology 2012

31. Stolzenberg, S., & Lyon, T.D. (In Press). How Attorneys Question Children About The Dynamics Of Sexual Abuse And Disclosure In Criminal Trials. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law,, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

Removal Of The Impediment: The State Of Transgender Marriage In Montana, Wesley Parks

Montana Law Review

As of the date of this article, no Montana court has explicitly addressed transgender marriage. Of the numerous state courts outside Montana that have addressed transgender marriage, traditional, objective definitions of sex were used that fail to protect the privacy of transgender people and fail to apply laws equally throughout the entire transgender community. This article surveys in depth those out-of-state cases to illustrate the inconsistent reasoning courts have applied when addressing transgender marriage. Then, this article examines contemporary Montana cases regarding gay and lesbian privacy and equal protection. Synthesizing these sources, this article suggests that Montana pioneer transgender marriage ...

Family Mediation After Hendershott: The Case For Uniform Domestic Violence Screening And Opt-In Provision In Montana, Eduardo R.C. Capulong

Montana Law Review

Hendershott is a welcome reaffirmation of Montana’s stand against domestic violence: domestic violence is a public matter requiring serious judicial attention. Without a systematic screening method, however, courts are ill-equipped to disqualify cases for mediation. Montana needs a method that not only diagnoses for domestic violence, but also distinguishes among different types as many, if not most, cases would benefit from mediation. An absolute bar is not the solution. What is required is a broad-based outreach and educational effort that would support what I suspect mediators across the state are already doing: tailoring mediation to address the needs of ...

30. Ahern, E.C., & Lyon, T.D. (In Press). Facilitating Maltreated Children's Use Of Emotional Language. Journal Of Forensic Social Work, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

In Re The Marriage Of Ramirez: Sex, Lies, And California’S Annulment For Fraud Based On Fidelity, Timothy Follett

Golden Gate University Law Review

In California, a party may be able to obtain an annulment for fraud under In re Marriage of Ramirez. In Ramirez, the husband was carrying on relations with his wife’s sister prior to the marriage. The affair between the husband and sister continued after the marriage. Subsequently, Jorge (husband) was overheard stating to the sister that he loved her and “they would be together once he got his share of money and property from Lilia [the wife], and told her that he had only married Lilia to gain permanent residence status.” The trial court “held that this kind of ...

Addressing Early Marriage: Culturally Competent Practices And Romanian Roma (“Gypsy”) Communities, Judith A. Hale Reed

Judith A Hale Reed

Early marriage affects many communities around the world. Examples of commonly practiced early marriage can be found today in the U.S., India, Syria, and many other places. Although most countries have instituted minimum age laws for marriage, so that legal marriage can only occur after an age set by law, early marriage is still practiced for tradition, control, security, and other reasons. This article explores the harms of early marriage and the international instruments meant to defend against these harms in Part II. Part III reviews theoretical perspectives from legal anthropology and presents a case study of early marriage ...

29. Lyon, Td, & Evans, Ad (In Press). Young Children’S Understanding That Promising Guarantees Performance: The Effects Of Age And Maltreatment. Law & Human Behavior., Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

No abstract provided.

“The Pursuit Of Happiness” Comes Home To Roost? Same-Sex Union, The Summum Bonum, And Equality, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Villanova University School of Law Working Paper Series

John Locke understood human happiness to amount to the removal of "uneasiness." This paper argues that,to the extent that the United States is a nation dedicated to "the pursuit of happiness" understood as the removal of "uneasiness," same-sex unions or marriages should be given legal recognition. While Locke defended a variation on traditional marriage on the grounds of progenitiveness and care for dependent offspring, his more foundational commitment to the importance of the removal of uneasiness precludes, on pain of inconsistency, limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. This paper argues, furthermore, that conservatives and neo-conservatives who celebrate this nation's ...