Law Commons^™

The Guardian Ad Litem In Child Custody Cases: The Contours Of Our Judicial System Stretched Beyond Recognition, Raven Lidman, Betsy Hollingsworth

Faculty Articles

This article discusses the role of the guardian ad litem, as Part I dissects each of the five potential guardian ad litem roles: Lawyer, Expert Witness, investigator/Lay Witness, Mediator/Facilitator, and Party. For each role, this section explores: how the well-known role is typically performed within the court system as a whole; how that role might be performed in a custody case, consistent with its occurrence elsewhere in the judicial system; and how that role, when held by a guardian ad litem, actually is performed in a custody context. Part II endeavors to explain how the guardian ad litem figure has …

American Family Law: History -- Whostory, Ana M. Novoa

Faculty Articles

Family law should be rooted in preserving and protecting intimate relationships; instead, it is rooted in preserving those domestic systems that created or expanded the economic empire of the "Founding Fathers," the white males of the colonial northeast. This northeastern colonial perspective continues to underpin most of the basic assumptions in family law. Concurrently, with the increased privatization of the cooperative virtues, Americans have developed an excessive preoccupation with self and a cult of consumerism.

Consumerism has driven American society toward increased individualism and narcissism. A by-product of the increased individual-consumer culture is the mistaken belief that our personal values …