Law Commons^™

Leaving Home, Andrew Schepard, Bernard Rothman, Paul Nassar

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Court-Ordered Mediation In Family Disputes: The New York Proposal, Linda Silberman, Andrew Schepard

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Marital and family disputes have been an important focus for alternative dispute resolution. Perhaps because divorce and custody disputes reveal the personal, human, and emotional aspects of conflict more visibly than other types of legal proceedings, attempts to resolve such disputes through the traditional legal process have proved remarkably ineffective. Mediation of divorce and custody matters is a particularly promising method of achieving more expeditious, less hostile, and more enduring matrimonial and custodial arrangements.

The mediation process offers to divorcing couples a neutral third party who will help the parties resolve their disputes. The mediator's function is to develop a …

Consultants' Comments On The New York State Law Revision Commission Recommendation On The Child Custody Dispute Resolution Process, Linda Silberman, Andrew Schepard

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

As the consultants to the New York State Law Revision Commission for its Recommendation concerning the child custody dispute resolution process, we share significantly in the credit for and the criticism of the Commission's work. One goal of our effort was to focus attention on the needs of parents and children involved in divorce ─ needs to which the legal system must respond. Public hearings have sharpened that issue and even raised questions about basic premises of the Recommendation. But the purpose of these Comments is to respond to some misconceptions that have arisen, by summarizing the philosophy and features …

Ground Rules For Custody Mediation And Modification, Andrew Schepard, Melissa D. Philbrick, Dvora Wolff Rabino

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

This Article describes an approach to resolving some of the strategic and ethical problems faced by attorneys who wish to mediate the custody disputes of divorcing parents. Part I of the Article sets forth some of the issues custody mediators necessarily confront and the setting in which we attempted to resolve them. Part II discusses the mediation ground rules that we developed to ensure that the mediation process would be both beneficial for the child and his family and ethical for attorneys working with mental health professionals. Because future disputes might develop and circumstances could change, Part III suggests a …

Another Look: Trial Court Unification In California In The Post-Proposition 13 Era, Andrew Schepard

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

One of the most beneficial aftershocks of the Proposition 13 earthquake, which shook the fiscal foundations of state and local government in California, is a growing willingness to examine the structure of government from top to bottom to see if it is providing services efficiently and competently. The kind of searching reexamination of government operations called for in the aftermath of Proposition 13 must include a new look at an old idea in judicial administration-trial court unification. The purpose of this article is to take that look and to argue that a unified trial court system can best meet the …