Law Commons^™

Medical Treatment Of Children With Hiv Illness And The Need For Supportive Intervention: The Challenges Of Medical Providers, Families And The State, Deborah J. Weimer

Faculty Scholarship

Human iummuno-deficiency virus (HIV) illness in children poses tremendous challenges to medical providers and families to work together to deliver optimal care. An alternative to filing "neglect" reports with the Department of Social Services is necessary to provide support and appropriate intervention to families and medical providers caring for HIV-positive children.

The creation of a neutral entity that could intervene and identify barriers to treatment and communication between the medical providers and the family would benefit all the parties involved. Knowledgeable mediators could help facilitate communication and identify appropriate support for the child and family.

Intervention would not be delayed …

What's Wrong With A Parenthood Market? A New And Improved Theory Of Commodification, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Globalization And Comparative Family Law: A Discussion Of Pluralism, Universality, And Markets, James T. Gathii, Patricia Youngblood Reyhan

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Children's Rights In Israel: An End To Corporal Punishment, Tamar Ezer

Articles

No abstract provided.

Yes, No, And Maybe: Informed Decision Making About Divorce Mediation In The Presence Of Domestic Violence, Nancy Ver Steegh

Faculty Scholarship

Divorce mediation in the context of domestic violence is one of the most controversial issues in family law today. Some believe that mediation is never appropriate when domestic violence has taken place, and others believe that it is always appropriate and should be mandatory. These views can be reconciled by taking a third approach, that mediation is sometimes appropriate but that this decision must be made on a case-by-case basis in consultation with the abuse survivor. The central premise of this article is that victims of domestic violence should have the opportunity to make an informed choice about which divorce …

Feminist Inquiry And Action: Introduction To A Symposium On Confronting Domestic Violence And Achieving Gender Equality: Evaluating Battered Women & Feminist Lawmakingby Elizabeth Schneider, Ann Shalleck

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Developments In Law And Policy: Emerging Issues In Family Law, Michael T. Morley, Richard Albert, Jennie L. Kneedler, Chrystiane Pereira

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Custody And Visitation: Considerations For Every Attorney Retained By A Survivor Of Domestic Violence, Caitlin Glass, Tamara Kuennen, Sharon Lopez

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Legal representation is a critical tool for survivors of domestic violence to live free from their battering partners. Representation in custody and visitation matters-- integral issues in the separation context--is particularly consequential for survivors. First, studies of custody litigation indicate that fathers who battered the mothers of their children are twice as likely to seek sole physical custody as are nonviolent fathers. Batterers are as likely as nonbattering fathers to prevail. Since the 1970s, fathers in general have been at a marked advantage in custody disputes. Second, custody and visitation claims involve a complex array of legal issues, laws, practices, …

The Intersection Between Welfare Reform And Child Support Enforcement: D.C.’S Weak Link, Stacy Brustin

Scholarly Articles

This Article examines the effectiveness with which the District of Columbia has linked welfare reform and child support collection. Part I discusses the ways in which the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation significantly altered federal and state child support systems. Part II shifts the discussion from the national arena to the District of Columbia and explores legislative, executive, and judicial responses to child support enforcement in the wake of federal welfare reform.

Part III recommends ways in which the District of Columbia can improve its enforcement system and suggests that it is not enough to simply establish child support orders; …

Judicial Independence In Family Courts, Barbara A. Babb, Judith D. Moran

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Unified Family Court, Barbara A. Babb

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ending Marriage As We Know It, Nancy Polikoff

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Affairs Of The Heart, Michael T. Flannery

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Symposium, The Rights Of Parents With Children In Foster Care: Removals Arising From Economic Hardship And The Predicative Power Of Race, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

Professor Cammett introduces a symposium at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York exploring the predicament posed by the surge of child removals through neglect petitions, and the subsequent placement of those children in foster care. The panel’s published comments offer some poignant reflections on the crisis of the child welfare system.

Of Child Welfare And Welfare Reform: The Implications For Children When Contradictory Policies Collide, Kay P. Kindred

Scholarly Works

On August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (hereinafter, “PRWORA” or the “welfare reform law”), which replaced the Aid to Families and Dependent Children Program (“AFDC”), the nation’s primary cash-assistance program, with the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program (“TANF”), funded by block grants to states. PRWORA represented a dramatic change in social welfare policy in the United States. Among the many changes effected by the law in the nation’s social welfare programs were: (1) the increased authority of the states over cash-assistance programs for needy families, giving …

The Effects Of The Courtroom Context On Children’S Memory And Anxiety, Rebecca Nathanson

Scholarly Works

Modifications of the courtroom environment have been proposed to enhance the ability of child witnesses to offer complete and accurate testimony and reduce system-induced stress. However, these interventions have often been conceived without the benefit of empirical data demonstrating intervention efficacy. The present study examines the effects of the courtroom context on children's memory and anxiety. Eighty-one eight- to ten-year-olds participated in a staged event involving bodily touch, and two weeks later their memory for the event was tested. Half of the children were questioned in a mock courtroom in a university law school, and half were questioned in a …

Adult Guardianship In Georgia: Are The Rights Of Proposed Wards Being Protected? Can We Tell?, Eleanor Crosby Lanier

Scholarly Works

National scrutiny of guardianship policies and practice by scholars and legal, health, and social service practitioners followed. This resulted in a succession of forums, studies, and recommendations aimed at improving the guardianship system. One such forum was the Wingspread conference, convened by the American Bar Association (ABA) in 1988. Experts from a variety of fields met to produce a groundbreaking set of recommendations for reforming guardianship. Wingspan, a second national guardianship conference addressing reform issues in 2001, produced in a second series of recommendations. The recommendations from these two conferences proposed greater protection for the proposed ward's liberty interests and …

Marriage Law: Obsolete Or Cutting Edge?, Jeffrey S. Lehman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of The Courtroom Context On Children's Memory And Anxiety, Rebecca Nathanson

Scholarly Works

Modifications of the courtroom environment have been proposed to enhance the ability of child witnesses to offer complete and accurate testimony and reduce system-induced stress. However, these interventions have often been conceived without the benefit of empirical data demonstrating intervention efficacy. The present study examines the effects of the courtroom context on children's memory and anxiety. Eighty-one eight- to ten-year-olds participated in a staged event involving bodily touch, and two weeks later their memory for the event was tested. Half of the children were questioned in a mock courtroom in a university law school, and half were questioned in a …

Child Placement Decisions: The Relevance Of Facial Resemblance And Biological Relationships, David J. Herring

Articles

This article discusses two studies of evolution and human behavior addressing child-adult relationships and explores implications for policies and practices surrounding placement of children in foster homes. The first study indicates that men favor children whose facial features resemble their own facial features. This study may justify public child welfare decisionmakers in considering facial resemblance as they attempt to place children in safe foster homes.

The second study indicates that parents are likely to invest more in children who are biologically related to them, thus enhancing their long term well-being. Among other implications, this study may justify public child welfare …

Strangers And Brothers: A Homily On Transracial Adoption, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

The common law speaks to us in parables. Ours is Drummond v. Fulton County Department of Family and Children's Services. Just before Christmas 1973, a boy named Timmy was born to a white mother and a black father. A month later, his mother was declared unfit, and the Department of Family and Children Services placed Timmy with white foster parents - Robert and Mildred Drummond. The Drummonds were "excellent" and "loving" parents, and Timmy grew into "an extremely bright, highly verbal, outgoing 15-month baby boy." Then the Drummonds asked to adopt Timmy. The Department's reviews of the Drummonds' devotion …

Intimate Affiliation And Democracy: Beyond Marriage?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This article takes up the question: Should family law and policy move beyond marriage? It assesses a spectrum of answers to that question. Rejecting proposals, on the one hand, to shore up traditional marriage, and, on the other, to abolish marriage, it argues that family law and policy should not move wholly beyond marriage, but should support marriage in a way that better fosters greater equality within and among families. The article is part of a symposium on "Marriage, Families, and Democracy," published in 32 Hofstra Law Review 23-421 (2003).

For Ira Ellman: One More Reason 'Why Making Family Law Is Hard', David L. Chambers

Articles

Kate Bartlett and Ira worked together as reporters on the ALI project. I was merely one of nearly thirty advisors to the reporters. The advisors had no responsibility for drafting, no responsibility for coming up with original proposals. Our sole job was to come once a year to a meeting in Philadelphia and take potshots at the drafts that Ira, Kate, and Grace Blumberg sent to us. At the meetings, the reporters would sit on a platform and listen to our comments as we moved section by section through a draft. Ira became a master of reportership. He would nod …

Child Welfare And Civil Rights, Dorothy E. Roberts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Damage To Family Relationships As A Collateral Consequence Of Parental Incarceration, Philip Genty

Faculty Scholarship

The most obvious and perhaps most serious collateral consequence of incarceration is family separation. Imprisonment undermines families and has a detrimental impact upon children, caretakers, and the communities in which they live. Unlike other collateral consequences, family separation has an irreversible impact upon both parents and children. The time apart is lost forever because a childhood can never be recovered.

This Essay will review the available statistical information about incarcerated parents and their children and discuss the detrimental effects of parental incarceration upon families. The Essay will conclude with some reflections about why the adverse consequences of incarceration for prisoners' …

Promoting Children's Interest Through A Responsible Research Agenda, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

I deeply wish to see more good empirical work in family law. If our system had all of the money in the world, I would wish to spend it to guarantee happy, healthy children. But since resources are scarce, and children's issues must compete with other interests that range from national security to care for the elderly, I would suggest spending a relatively modest amount to determine what programs would likely prove successful.

Usually public policy follows from the wishes of adults. In family law, this occurs although virtually all the legislation dealing with families and children begins with a …

Efficiency, Therapeutic Justice, Mediation, And Evaluation: Reflections On A Survey Of Unified Family Courts, Andrew Schepard, James W. Bozzomo

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In cooperation with the American Bar Association's Coordinating Council on Unified Family Courts, faculty and students of Hofstra University's Center for Children, Families and the Courts conducted a survey of various courts in states we believed had made a commitment to implement a unified family court (UFC) model. Based on a questionnaire developed by the Center and the Coordinating Council, Hofstra Law School students interviewed court administrators, family court judges, or knowledgeable members of the family court bar in eighteen states. A detailed description of the survey, its methodology, and its findings is being published in the Family Court Review.' …

Grandparent Visitation Claims: Assessing The Multiple Harms Of Litigation To Families And Children, Stephen A. Newman

Articles & Chapters

This article provides a detailed appraisal of the negative consequences of grandparent visitation lawsuits, and of the harms caused by state-coerced grandparent visitation, in the context of the malfunctioning extended family. I suggest that the special weight afforded a fit parent's decision should be very substantial, and that it should be dispositive of the case unless the grandparent can produce convincing evidence showing that extraordinary circumstances, involving clear harm to the child, justify court ordered visitation. This high degree of deference to parents derives from two features of grandparent visitation cases that deserve more attention than they have received so …

Placing The Adoptive Self, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

[A]doption law and practices are guided by enormous cultural changes in the composition and the meaning of family. As families become increasingly blended outside the context of adoption – with combinations of blood relatives, step-relatives, de facto relatives, and ex-relatives sitting down together for Thanksgiving dinner as a matter of course – birth families and adoptive families knowing one another may not seem so very strange or threatening at all. There will simply be an expectation across communities that ordinary families will be mixed and multiple. With that in mind, we should hesitate before establishing embeddedness as the source of …