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Articles 31 - 57 of 57
Full-Text Articles in Law
Assesing The Family And Medical Leave Act In Terms Of Gender Equality, Work/Family Balance, And The Needs Of Children, Angie K. Young
Assesing The Family And Medical Leave Act In Terms Of Gender Equality, Work/Family Balance, And The Needs Of Children, Angie K. Young
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
While recognizing that parental leave is only one aspect of the FMLA, this Article concentrates on the provision allowing leave to parents in order to care for their children. Before analyzing the FMLA in detail, it is helpful to explore what aims a parental-leave policy should have. The purpose of this Article is to propose and defend three goals that parental-leave legislation should strive to meet: equality of career opportunities for men and women, the right to participate in both work and family, and meeting the needs of children. After articulating what parental-leave legislation should aim for in theory, this …
Speaking To Tribal Judges On The Matter Of Improving Children's Court Practice In Child Abuse And Neglect Cases In Our Country: A Proposal For A Uniform Children's Code, Julian D. Pinkham
Speaking To Tribal Judges On The Matter Of Improving Children's Court Practice In Child Abuse And Neglect Cases In Our Country: A Proposal For A Uniform Children's Code, Julian D. Pinkham
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Since the 1970 the responsibilities of the tribal children's courts have increased dramatically. In child welfare case tribal courts no longer simply determine whether a child has been abused or neglected. They now also oversee the placement of the child in a shelter, foster care, or a permanent home, as well as determine the parent's treatment or visitation rights The complexity of the cases causes unacceptable delays in placing Indian children in need of care and hinders the placement of Indian children within the tribal community.
Judge Pinkham introduces a proposed solution to the problems of current tribal child welfare …
We Know Better Than We Do: A Policy Framework For Child Welfare Reform, Donald N. Duquette, Sandra K. Danzinger, Joan M. Abbey, Kristin S. Seefeldt
We Know Better Than We Do: A Policy Framework For Child Welfare Reform, Donald N. Duquette, Sandra K. Danzinger, Joan M. Abbey, Kristin S. Seefeldt
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The need for comprehensive reform of child welfare policies and systems has long been evident. This Article reports observations from the WK Kellogg Foundation-sponsored Families for Kids Initiative that seeks to expand services and support to families and reduce the time children spend in temporary care. The authors first provide an overview of the need for reforms such as those proposed by this initiative, suggesting that many child welfare studies, critiques, and proposed reforms have had similar objectives. The authors highlight lessons learned from how these reform goals are being developed, implemented, and practiced in ongoing programs across the nation …
Marriage Today: Legal Consequences For Same Sex And Opposite Sex Couples, David L. Chambers
Marriage Today: Legal Consequences For Same Sex And Opposite Sex Couples, David L. Chambers
Articles
Laws that treat married persons in a different manner than they treat single persons permeate nearly every field of social regulation in this country -- taxation, otrts, evidence, social welfare, inheritance, adoption, and on and on.
Unemployment Compensation In A Time Of Increasing Work-Family Conflicts, Martin H. Malin
Unemployment Compensation In A Time Of Increasing Work-Family Conflicts, Martin H. Malin
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The demographics of the workplace have changed substantially since the nation's unemployment insurance system was enacted in the 1930s. The number of dual-earner and single-parent families has increased dramatically. Yet, the basic requirements for eligibility for unemployment compensation have not varied much since their initial enactment. In this Article, Professor Malin explores the availability of benefits to individuals who lose their jobs because of conflicts between work and family responsibilities and to unemployed individuals whose family responsibilities restrict the types of jobs that they are able to take. He finds that the states have differed greatly concerning the degree to …
Innocent Spouses, Reasonable Women And Divorce: The Gap Between Reality And The Internal Revenue Code, Stephen A. Zorn
Innocent Spouses, Reasonable Women And Divorce: The Gap Between Reality And The Internal Revenue Code, Stephen A. Zorn
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article asks whether the "reasonable woman" should become the standard for women seeking relief from tax liabilities under the innocent spouse provision of the I.R.C. and whether an even more specific standard should be adopted for women who are also going through divorce or are in similar situations.
What If? The Legal Consequences Of Marriage And The Legal Needs Of Lesbian And Gay Male Couples, David L. Chambers
What If? The Legal Consequences Of Marriage And The Legal Needs Of Lesbian And Gay Male Couples, David L. Chambers
Articles
Laws that treat married persons in a different manner than they treat single persons permeate nearly every field of social regulation in this country - taxation, torts, evidence, social welfare, inheritance, adoption, and on and on. In this article I inquire into the patterns these laws form and the central benefits and obligations that marriage entails, a task few scholars have undertaken in recent years. I have done so because same-sex couples, a large group not previously eligible to marry under the laws of any American jurisdiction, may be on the brink of securing the opportunity to do so in …
Divorce Reform And The Legacy Of Gender, Milton C. Regan Jr.
Divorce Reform And The Legacy Of Gender, Milton C. Regan Jr.
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Illusion of Equality: The Rhetoric and Reality of Divorce Reform by Martha Albertson Fineman
Minor Changes: Emancipating Children In Modem Times, Carol Sanger, Eleanor Willemsen
Minor Changes: Emancipating Children In Modem Times, Carol Sanger, Eleanor Willemsen
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article reports on the use of still another mechanism for removing children in conflict with their parents: statutory emancipation, the process by which minors attain legal adulthood before reaching the age of majority. Statutorily emancipated minors can sign binding contracts, own property, keep their earnings, and disobey their parents. Although under eighteen, they are "considered as being over the age of majority" in most of their dealings with parents and third parties. Thus, while emancipated minors can sign contracts and stay out late, their adult status also means that their parents are no longer responsible for the minors' support. …
Spousal Rights In Our Multiple-Marriage Society: The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Spousal Rights In Our Multiple-Marriage Society: The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Articles
The transformation of the American family constitutes one of the great phenomenons of the past two decades. The traditional Leave It to Beaver family no longer prevails in American society. To be sure, families consisting of the wage-earning husband, the homemaking and child-rearing wife, and their two joint children still exist. But divorce rates are astonishingly high and remarriage abounds. In fact, there is an increasing prevalence in the population of marriages that are more likely to end in divorce than others-marriages in which one or both partners were divorced before and marriages of couples who cohabited prior to marriage.
Discretion, Rules, And Law: Child Custody And The Umda's Best-Interest Standard, Carl E. Schneider
Discretion, Rules, And Law: Child Custody And The Umda's Best-Interest Standard, Carl E. Schneider
Michigan Law Review
One barrier facing any attempt to devise a uniform law for diverse jurisdictions is the occasional - perhaps even frequent - difficulty of writing rules that will accurately guide judges. The law's ordinary solution to that difficulty is to give judges some measure of discretion. This article inquires into the nature and legitimacy of that technique. It does so by analyzing a particularly controversial provision of the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA). Section 402 of that Act states: "The court shall determine custody in accordance with the best interest of the child." It then instructs the court to "consider …
Ex Proprio Vigore, James J. White
Ex Proprio Vigore, James J. White
Articles
The National Conference of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) is a legislature in every way but one. It drafts uniform acts, debates them, passes them, and promulgates them, but that passage and promulgation do not make these uniform acts law over any citizen of any state. These acts become the law of the various states only ex proprio vigore - only if their own vitality influences the legislators of the various states to pass them.
Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers
Commentary: Meeting The Financial Needs Of Children, David L. Chambers
Articles
Those who drafted the equitable distribution statutes adopted in New York and elsewhere wanted to help assure women and children an acceptable level of financial well-being after divorce. Marsha Garrison has shown that divorcing couples rarely possess enough resources to attain financial well-being even when they live together as a couple, let alone when they live in two separate households. She has also shown that, even in the cases of couples with substantial assets, the broad and general language of the equitable distribution statute did not lead (and could not have been expected to lead) to consistent distributions that assured …
Family Support Of The Disabled: A Legislative Proposal To Create Incentives To Support Disabled Family Members, Judith G. Mcmullen
Family Support Of The Disabled: A Legislative Proposal To Create Incentives To Support Disabled Family Members, Judith G. Mcmullen
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Several authorities in the field of estate planning have examined in great detail the options currently available to the parents of disabled children. The options are limited. Ideally, laws should address the concerns of the families of disabled children while providing those families with the incentive to help bear the financial costs of providing for their children. New legislation is needed to achieve this dual objective. This legislation must establish a method by which parents can improve meaningfully the quality of a surviving disabled child's life without substantially increasing the social cost of supporting that disabled child. This Article proposes …
The Relevance Of Temporary Child Custody Orders To The Formation Of An Established Custodial Environment: A Model Statute For Uniform Application Under Michigan Law, Christine M. Drylie
The Relevance Of Temporary Child Custody Orders To The Formation Of An Established Custodial Environment: A Model Statute For Uniform Application Under Michigan Law, Christine M. Drylie
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note presents a Model Statute that clearly indicates when a court may find that an established custodial environment has arisen out of a temporary custody order. The Model Statute thus clarifies when it is appropriate to apply the clear and convincing evidentiary standard to situations involving temporary child custody orders. Part I of this Note describes the court's use of temporary custody orders to determine whether an established custodial environment exists. Part II sets forth the Model Statute, which integrates current case law into statutory language designed specifically for temporary custody situations. Part II also analyzes each section of …
Stepparents, Biologic Parents, And The Law's Perception Of 'Family' After Divorce, David L. Chambers
Stepparents, Biologic Parents, And The Law's Perception Of 'Family' After Divorce, David L. Chambers
Book Chapters
The drama of divorce always contains at least two characters, a woman and a man, and often a third, a child born to the woman and the man. If you have read the other chapters of this book, you have rarely encountered any of the other persons who may be affected by a divorce, such as the children of either person from a prior marriage, or later spouses or partners of either party, or later born children of either party-all the persons who are or become stepchildren or stepparents. You have not encountered them because, in this country, with minor …
Legislatures And Legal Change: The Reform Of Divorce Law, Carl E. Schneider
Legislatures And Legal Change: The Reform Of Divorce Law, Carl E. Schneider
Michigan Law Review
A Review of A Silent Revolution: Routine Policy Making and the Transformation of Divorce Law in the United States by Herbert Jacob
Redesigning The Spouse's Forced Share, John H. Langbein, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Redesigning The Spouse's Forced Share, John H. Langbein, Lawrence W. Waggoner
Articles
American forced-share law underwent a major round of reform in the 1960s. The main objective was to prevent the decedent from engaging in "fraud on the widow's share," that is, using nominal inter vivos transfers to evade the surviving spouse's forced-share entitlement. In jurisdictions that follow the Uniform Probate Code of 1969 (UPC), that mischief has been eradicated. The UPC, which is discussed in some detail below, extends the forced-share entitlement to property that has been the subject of inter vivos transfer. In the present article we develop the view that the time has come for a further round of …
Improving Parent-Child Relationships Within The Divorced Family: A Call For Legal Reform, John S. Murray
Improving Parent-Child Relationships Within The Divorced Family: A Call For Legal Reform, John S. Murray
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In this Article, I address these three questions within the framework provided by the goal to be achieved. Part I outlines the present system and its problems, discussing both its effects on divorced family members and the problems inherent in the exclusive custody rule. Part II builds a proposal for legal reform by first considering the effect of conflict within the family, then identifying five value guidelines that should control the relationships, and finally describing the proposal in detail. Part III analyzes the pros and cons of the reform proposal to determine whether its adoption could establish a healthier environment …
The 'Legalization' Of The Family: Toward A Policy Of Supportive Neutrality, David L. Chambers
The 'Legalization' Of The Family: Toward A Policy Of Supportive Neutrality, David L. Chambers
Articles
The word "legalization" has conflicting meanings. One, intended to sound the theme of this conference, conveys the notion of government regulation permeating some area of human activity. The other-as found, for example, in the phrase "the legalization of marijuana"-is a near opposite: the process of making legal or permissible that which. was previously forbidden, taking government out of that which it had previously controlled. The recent history of government's relationship to the family amply displays both sorts of legalization, both government's intrusion and its withdrawal, and reveals a paradoxical relation between the two-that as government frees people to live their …
Inequality In Marital Liabilities: The Need For Equal Protection When Modifying The Necessaries Doctrine, Debra S. Betteridge
Inequality In Marital Liabilities: The Need For Equal Protection When Modifying The Necessaries Doctrine, Debra S. Betteridge
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note contends that the "primary/secondary" modification is unconstitutional because it ignores the husband's equal protection rights while unlawfully stigmatizing women as dependent. Part I discusses how the growing independence of women has led courts to modify the common law doctrine. Part II develops the test that the Supreme Court would apply in judging the constitutionality of any modification of the doctrine. Part III applies this test to the "primary/secondary" modification and concludes that the modification is unconstitutional and, therefore, not a legitimate reformation of the common law necessaries doctrine.
The Coming Curtailment Of Compulsory Child Support, David L. Chambers
The Coming Curtailment Of Compulsory Child Support, David L. Chambers
Articles
Absent parents ought to contribute to the support of their minor children and states can appropriately invoke the force of law to compel them to do so. Stated so generally, even absent parents behind in their payments would probably agree. Since so many others agree as well, and since the numbers of single-parent children have mushroomed, systems of governmentally compelled support in this country have grown enormously. By the early part of the next century, if current laws remain in force and current population trends continue, most of America's children on any given day will be entitled to support from …
Marital Agreements In Contemplation Of Divorce, Barbara Klarman
Marital Agreements In Contemplation Of Divorce, Barbara Klarman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Romantic notions that marriage is forever are beginning to give way to the more realistic assessments that marriages indeed may not last. The pressure has been mounting for ways to provide economic planning to parties in the relatively likely event that their marriages terminate in divorce. The purpose of this article is to focus on one method of obtaining such planning: the marital agreement setting forth the support and property distribution which the parties would follow in the event of divorce. This article will review the law regarding marital agreements in contemplation of divorce as it exists in the United …
Divorce Law Reform In Michigan, B. H. Lee
Divorce Law Reform In Michigan, B. H. Lee
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Few social questions touch the individual so intimately and foster such widely divergent views as the question of divorce. From those who regard marriage as a perpetual and indissoluble bond instituted by God to those who consider it a terminable contract between a man and a woman, every shade of opinion can be found. The subject of marital breakdown is neither new nor peculiar to our age. As one author has said: "The breakdown of marriage with provisions for divorce and remarriage is a phenomenon widely recognized in Babylonian, Hebrew, Greek and Roman law." Nevertheless, ever since Christianity established a …
California Family Law Act, Meredith A. Nelson
California Family Law Act, Meredith A. Nelson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
California's Family Law Act has been heralded as the first major change in the State's divorce provisions in one hundred years. The Act is an attempt to remedy two major criticisms of current divorce practice both in California and throughout the United States. First, those advocating reform believe that laws controlling the granting of divorces are in conflict with modem concepts of marriage and divorce. Many divorce laws impose punitive sanctions in an attempt to deter those who would otherwise seek a divorce. Second, notwithstanding their intent, divorce laws have not, in fact, reduced the frequency of divorce. The inability …
Family Support From Fugitive Fathers: A Proposed Amendment To Michigan's Long Arm Statute, Robert L. Nelson
Family Support From Fugitive Fathers: A Proposed Amendment To Michigan's Long Arm Statute, Robert L. Nelson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
It is the purpose of this article to propose and discuss an amendment to Michigan's long arm statute which will allow the entry of extraterritorial alimony, separate maintenance, or child support decrees when Michigan is the state of the marital domicile and the defendant-spouse cannot be located for personal service of process. A plaintiff employing the proposed provision in a divorce action will be able to seek alimony, separate maintenance, or support payments as if the defendant were before the court, and the court will have the authority to grant her the necessary relief. If and when the wife later …
Divorce Laws And The Increase Of Divorce, Evans Holbrook
Divorce Laws And The Increase Of Divorce, Evans Holbrook
Articles
Along with the condemnation of the divorce evil has gone a very general disposition to condemn our divorce laws as being responsible for the evil. The committee on resolutions of the Congress on Uniform Divorce Laws in its report to the Congress at its adjourned session in Philadelphia, November 13, 1906, speaks of the "many evils engendered by the lax and unphilosophic system prevailing in many of the states."3 On this phase of the question also our late president gave his views in his special message to Congress on January 30, 1905, in the following words: "There is a wide-spread …