Law Commons^™

The Ali Principles Of The Law Of Family Dissolution: Addressing Inequality Through Functional Regulation, Linda C. Mcclain, Douglas Nejamie

Faculty Scholarship

As part of a volume commemorating the American Law Institute on its centennial, this Essay reflects on the ALI Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution. We show how the Principles’ drafters intervened in cutting-edge issues at a time of flux in family law in ways that elaborated a progressive agenda that would continue to gain traction in the years after the Principles’ publication in 2000. Beginning from the assumption that family law should reflect how people actually live, the drafters developed a functional, rather than formal, approach to legal regulation. Such an approach, they believed, could vindicate commitments to …

Tributes To Family Law Scholars Who Helped Us Find Our Path, Ann Laquer Estin, Melissa Murray, June Carbone, Barbara A. Atwood, Paul M. Kurtz, J. Thomas Oldham, Bruce M. Smyth, Brian H. Bix, Elizabeth S. Scott, R.A. Lenhardt, Jessica Dixon Weaver, Solangel Maldonado, Sacha M. Coupet

Faculty Scholarship

At some point after the virus struck, I had the idea that it would be appropriate and interesting to ask a number of experienced family law teachers to write a tribute about a more senior family law scholar whose work inspired them when they were beginning their careers. I mentioned this idea to some other long-term members of the professoriate, and they agreed that this could be a good project.

So I reached out to some colleagues and asked them to participate. Many agreed to join the team. Some suggested other potential contributors, and some of these suggested faculty members …

Family Law—The Revictimization Of Survivors Of Domestic Violence And Their Children: The Heartbreaking Unintended Consequence Of Separating Children From Their Abused Parent, Jeanne Kaiser, Caroline M. Foley

Faculty Scholarship

Massachusetts law governing child custody recognizes the damaging effect that witnessing domestic violence can have on a child. Accordingly, the law requires courts to give special attention to the effects of domestic violence on a child when determining custody. An unintended consequence of this scrutiny is that parents who have been the victims of domestic violence can lose custody, or even their parental rights, for failing to protect children from witnessing their abuse. This result can be prevented by requiring courts to apply the same level of attention to the effects of domestic violence when removing a child from an …

The Strange Life Of Stanley V. Illinois: A Case Study In Parent Representation And Law Reform, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

This Article helps describe the growth of parent representation through an analysis of Stanley v. Illinois — the foundational Supreme Court case that established parental fitness as the constitutional lynchpin of any child protection case. The Article begins with Stanley’s trial court litigation, which illustrates the importance of vigorous parental representation and an effort by the court to prevent Stanley from obtaining an attorney. It proceeds to analyze how family courts applied it (or not) in the years following the Supreme Court’s decision and what factors have led to a recent resurgence of Stanley’s fitness focus.

Despite Stanley …

Early Childhood Development And The Law, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Early childhood development is a robust and vibrant focus of study in multiple disciplines, from economics and education to psychology and neuroscience. Abundant research from these disciplines has established that early childhood is critical for the development of cognitive abilities, language, and psychosocial skills, all of which turn, in large measure, on the parent-child relationship. And because early childhood relationships and experiences have a deep and lasting impact on a child’s life trajectory, disadvantages during early childhood replicate inequality. Working together, scholars in these disciplines are actively engaged in a national policy debate about reducing inequality through early childhood interventions. …

Nonmarital Families And The Legal System's Institutional Failures, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

As along-time critic of family law, I find it odd to be singing the system's praises. And yet I am. Sort of. In this issue of the Family Law Quarterly, which addresses cohabitation and nonmarital families, I want to focus on what happens when relationships end. For all its shortcomings, family law provides an institution to help divorcing couples restructure their families following the end of relationships. For nonmarital families, not so much. Unmarried parents theoretically can go to court when they separate, but most do not. Thus., as a practical matter, the legal system leaves unmarried parents without an …

Postmarital Family Law: A Legal Structure For Nonmarital Families, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Family law is based on marriage, but family life increasingly is not. The American family is undergoing a seismic shift, with marriage rates steadily declining and more than four in ten children now born to unmarried parents. Children of unmarried parents fall far behind children of married parents on a variety of metrics, contributing to stark inequality among children. Poverty and related factors explain much of this differential, but new sociological evidence highlights family structure — particularly friction and dislocation between unmarried parents after their relationship ends — as a crucial part of the problem. As the trend toward nonmarital …

Children, Kin, And Court: Designing Third Party Custody Policy To Protect Children, Third Parties And Parents, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

Millions of American children are raised primarily by people other than their parents, mostly by grandparents and other kin, and millions more are raised by third parties for some period of their childhood. In most such situations, informal arrangements negotiated by family members and kinship networks effectively provide care for these children. Many cases, however, require some formal legal arrangement; third party custody orders are needed to obtain necessary services and benefits for children whose parents are absent, and to protect children in the rare but still significant instances in which a parent is abusive or neglectful.

States currently have …

Differentiating Types Of Domestic Violence: Implications For Child Custody, Nancy Ver Steegh

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines child custody determinations through the lens of a domestic violence typology. The resulting analysis (1) reconciles competing viewpoints and contradictory evidence about domestic violence; (2) matches families with appropriate child custody court procedures and services such as parent education, mediation, supervised visitation and parent coordination; and (3) exposes serious deficiencies in current domestic violence childcustody statutes.

Ethical Judgment And Interdisciplinary Collaboration In Custody And Child Welfare Cases, Deborah J. Weimer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Child Support, Visitation, Shared Custody And Split Custody, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.