Law Commons^™

The Quickly--Evolving Tax Filing Status For Same-Gender Couples, John Treu

John S. Treu

Discusses the evolving law regarding federal income tax filing status for same-gender couples.

Institutionalized Silence: The Problem Of Child Voicelessness In Divorce Proceedings, Brandon Sadowsky

Brandon Sadowsky

In this paper, I present the current state of child representation in divorce proceedings. I argue that children should be represented in all divorce proceedings. I then consider the best interest and client-directed models of child representation and argue that each model is supported by important intuitions: paternalism and autonomy, respectively. I try to formulate a hybrid model that satisfies both of these intuitions.

Artificial Reproductive Techniques And The Protection Of The Kinship System, Scott Fitzgibbon

Scott T. FitzGibbon

No abstract provided.

12. Interviewing Victims And Suspected Victims Who Are Reluctant To Talk., Irit Irit Hershkowitz, Michael E. Lamb, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

"The Good Mother": Mothering, Feminism, And Incarceration, Deseriee A. Kennedy

Deseriee A. Kennedy

As the rates of incarceration continue to rise, women are increasingly subject to draconian criminal justice and child welfare policies that frequently result in the loss of their parental rights. The intersection of an increasingly carceral state and federally imposed time-lines for achieving permanency for children in state care has had a negative effect on women, their children, and their communities. Women, and their ability to parent, are more adversely affected by the intersection of these gender-neutral provisions because they are more likely than men to be the primary caretaker of their children. In addition, incarcerated women have higher rates …

Valuación De Empresas Familiares En Crisis, Carlos Molina Sandoval

Carlos Molina Sandoval

La valuación de empresas se ocupa de determinar ese valor en función de los distintos interesados en la empresa (accionistas, directores, familiares, proveedores, clientes, empleados, fisco, etc.) y suele fundarse no sólo en estrictas pautas económicas o financieras sino también en apreciaciones razonables tomadas sobre las llamadas prácticas comerciales y la organización interna familiar. Las especiales características familiares de una empresa incidente significativamente en las pautas de valuación.

Children, Parents & The State: The Construction Of A New Family Ideology, Deseriee A. Kennedy

Deseriee A. Kennedy

More than twenty-five states allow courts to consider parental incarceration or conviction of a crime in determining whether to terminate parental rights. This problem is of increasing significance as a result of dramatic growth in incarceration rates, particularly among women who were often the primary and sole caretaker of their children before their imprisonment. Social scientists have recognized that the reality for parents in many communities is one of widespread and repeated incarceration, which has a devastating effect on families and communities. The problem is magnified by a failed drug policy and the Adoption and Safe Families Act, which, in …

Removing Nonconforming Child Support Payments From The Shadow Of The Rule Against Retroactive Modification: A Proposal For Judicial Discretion, J. Smithburn

J. Eric Smithburn

No abstract provided.

Natural Law And The Marriage Of Christians, Robert E. Rodes

Robert Rodes

No abstract provided.

Explaining Abuse Of The Disabled Child, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

This article discusses abuse of disabled children in terms of two competing theories for why it may occur. The evolutionary biology theory has been discussed in the legal literature as well as in biological and social science pieces. The author contrasts this theory with a novel one, mimetic desire, which may be less familiar in legal circles, but which, he believes, better explains the abuse of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder children and offers more hope for preventing abuse without disrupting intact families. While the evolutionary biology explanations for child abuse may be helpful and important, more territory can be covered …

Comment On Jana Singer's Alimony And Efficiency, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Buying Time For Survivors Of Domestic Violence: A Proposal For Implementing An Exception To Welfare Time Limits, Jennifer Mason Mcaward

Jennifer Mason McAward

No abstract provided.

Empirical Work In Family Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

Until fairly recently, researchers have not done much theoretical work on the subject of family law. Although the move towards theoretical work is a positive one, unfortunately, most of the latest reforms in family law have been uninformed by empirical studies. Furthermore, the few empirical studies that have been conducted are replete with intractable problems.

In this essay, Margaret Brinig discusses some of the problems researchers have encountered in their attempts to conduct empirical work in the area of family law. For example, most researchers have used state cross-sectional data for their experiments. Reliance on this type of data can …

Parental Rights And The Ugly Duckling, Margaret F. Brinig, F. H. Buckley

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Are All Contracts Alike?, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Moving Toward A First-Best World: Minnesota's Position On Multiethnic Adoptions, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Child Support Guidelines And Divorce Incentives, Margaret F. Brinig, Douglas W. Allen

Margaret F Brinig

A child support guideline is a formula used to calculate support payments based on a few family characteristics. Guidelines began replacing court awarded support payments in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and were eventually mandated by the federal government in 1988. Two fundamentally different types of guidelines are used: percentage of obligor income, and income shares models. This paper explores the incentives to divorce under the two schemes, and uses the NLSY data set to test the key predictions. We find that percentage of obligor income models are destabilizing for some families with high incomes. This may explain why …

Domestic Partnership: Missing The Target?, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Penalty Defaults In Family Law: The Case Of Child Custody, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

This paper considers whether an amendment to state divorce laws that strengthens its joint custody preference operates as a traditional default rule, specifying what most divorcing couples would choose or as a penalty default rule the parties will attempt to contract around.

While the Oregon statutes that frame our discussion here, like most state laws, do not state an explicit preference for joint custody, shared custody is certainly encouraged by Section 107.179, which refers cases in which the parties cannot agree on joint custody to mediation and by Section 107.105, which requires the court to consider awarding custody jointly. In …

Rethinking Marriage: Feminist Ideology, Economic Change, And Divorce Reform, Margaret F. Brinig, June Carbone

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Unhappy Contracts: The Case Of Divorce Settlements, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

This paper examines a particular type of contracts that is, sadly, increasingly frequent: the agreements produced by divorcing couples. They are unhappy contracts, agreements produced as a necessary part of exit from what is now suboptimal marriage. They are virtually required by many states and are, in theory at least, closely monitored by courts since, when children are involved, they will be incorporated into court orders.What parties to unhappy contracts do is attempt to minimize losses, rather than maximize gain. How are contracts structured that will do this, and how does a difference in the size or power of the …

Marriage And Opportunism, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven M. Crafton

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

No-Fault Laws And At-Fault People, Margaret F. Brinig, F. H. Buckley

Margaret F Brinig

Absent transaction costs, the Coase Theorem suggests that divorce reform would work no change in the frequency of divorce but perhaps would alter the distribution of marital wealth. However, divorce does involve substantial process costs, which no-fault lowered. This paper explores the question of what happened to state divorce rates because of the legal changes wrought by the family law revolution that began in the 1970s, isolating the effect of the legal variable from other demographic and social factors that might also explain the variation in divorce rates across states and across time.

Property Distribution Physics: The Talisman Of Time And Middle Class Law, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

United States: Deconstructing The American Family - Developments In Family Law During 1993, Lynn D. Wardle, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Choosing The Lesser Evil: Comments On Besharov's "Child Abuse Realities", Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Legal Status And Effects On Children, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

Legal Status And Effect On Children, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock

Margaret F Brinig

One of the haunting claims of each poor, unmarried mother in Edin and Kefalas' Promises I Can Keep is that at least she can guarantee she will love her child, even though she cannot promise to make a lifelong commitment to a mate. That love, each young mother says, will be a sustaining gift both to her and the child. Similarly, in work done by sociologists McLanahan and Garfinkel to counteract the claim that it was not single parenting that made children's prospects dim, but poverty, sociologists have found that many of the bad effects of single parenting go away …

Finite Horizons: The American Family, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Impact On Marriage, 1967-90, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.