Law Commons^™

Stop Making Court A First Stop For Many Low Income Parents, Jane C. Murphy

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In the wake of the unrest over police misconduct in cities across the country, calls for reform have focused on the criminal justice system — making police, prosecutors, and criminal courts more accountable and just. While much work needs to be done in that arena, too little attention has focused on the ways in which low income families are hurt in civil courts. Many more men, women and children from low income communities of color pass through the doors of our family courts every day than those who interact with the criminal justice system. Some come to court as a …

Families Matter: Recommendations To Improve Outcomes For Children And Families In Court, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger

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The Families Matter initiative was designed as a major, multi-year undertaking to develop legal practice methods and approaches to reduce the destructive consequences of the family legal process. The initiative was intended to respond to the need for deep and meaningful reform of the family law process.

Convened in June 2010 by the University of Baltimore School of Law Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC), the Families Matter Symposium brought together an interdisciplinary group of family law experts for two days at the University of Baltimore to identify problems regarding the practice of family …

Surrender And Subordination: Birth Mothers And Adoption Law Reform, Elizabeth Samuels

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For more than 30 years adoption law reform advocates have been seeking to restore for adult adoptees the right to access their original birth certificates, a right that was lost in all but two states between the late 1930s and 1990. The advocates have faced strong opposition and have succeeded only in recent years and only in eight states. Among the most vigorous advocates for access are “birth mothers” who surrendered their children during a time it was believed that adoption would relieve unmarried women of shame and restore them to a respectable life. The birth mother advocates say that …

A More Humane Vision Of Family Law: Holistic Approach Needed To Shield Children From The Trauma Of Breakups, Barbara A. Babb, Mitchell K. Karpf

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No abstract provided.

Child Custody Evaluations: Review Of The Literature And Annotated Bibliography, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger, Judith D. Moran, J. Mason Weeda, William A. Mack

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This review of custody evaluation literature encompasses a number of perspectives gleaned from the following: practitioners who perform the evaluations; the professional organizations that recognize the necessity to establish performance standards for practitioners; and the judges who depend on the findings and recommendations in the evaluations to assist with difficult custody decisions.

General agreement exists among practitioners about the components of a comprehensive evaluation (interviews of adults responsible for child care, interviews of children and their preferences, life histories, observations, psychological testing, document review, and collateral source data), though little consensus exists about the details of performance concerning a given …

A Comprehensive Approach To Truancy For Baltimore City: A Roundtable Discussion, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger

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The University of Baltimore School of Law Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC), one of three centers of excellence within the School of Law, is a national leader in promoting family justice system reform. CFCC’s mission is to create, foster and support local, state, and national movements to integrate communities, families, and the justice system in order to improve the lives of families and the health of the community. CFCC’s Truancy Court Program (TCP), created in 2004, exemplifies these goals through the operation of a court-school-CFCC partnership that leverages the stature, authority, and expertise of each of these …

Adoption, Elizabeth Samuels

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In historical terms, the legal institution of adoption in the United Slates is relatively new. It was between the mid-1800s and the 1920s that the states began to pass laws providing for the adoption of children. Before then children had been adopted informally and in some instances by individual legislative acts, or they had come to live with other families under indenture contracts or as a result of legislation authorizing charitable organizations to place children. Under these new adoption statutes, initially the court records of adoptions were not subject to confidentiality, and adopted children were not issued new birth certificates. …

Protecting Children By Preserving Parenthood, Jane C. Murphy

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Establishing legal parentage, once a relatively straightforward matter of marriage and biology, has become increasingly complex. The determination of legal status as mother may now involve several women making claims based on genetic contribution, contract, status as gestational carrier or other bases. The debate about the best choice for children when adults are competing for parental status is ongoing, lively and filled with many voices. Less attention has been paid to a much larger, second category of cases - cases in which the law is faced with resolving the legal status of the one adult who may be available to …

Adoption Consents: Legal Incentives For Best Practices, Elizabeth Samuels

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When a state places its legal imprimatur on the unmaking of one family and the making of another, the state should insure to the greatest extent possible that all the individuals involved have followed or have been afforded the best practices that ethics and humanity demand. The Uniform Adoption Act sets out commonly accepted goals of state adoption laws, among them the goals of protecting minor children against unnecessary separation from their birth parents and of ensuring that a decision by a birth parent to relinquish a minor child and consent to the childs adoption is informed and voluntary. With …

Legal Representation Of Birth Parents And Adoptive Parents, Elizabeth Samuels

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The Article examines the role that legal representation of birth and prospective parents may or may not play in independent domestic adoptions in furthering two primary goals that characterize ethically and humanely conducted adoptions, deliberate decision making and finality. Ideally, these two goals are complementary and can be balanced with one another. There is, however, a danger of the second goal eclipsing the first. Many state laws appear to value an increase in infant adoptions over the goal of encouraging careful deliberation. Most domestic infant adoptions involve powerful market forces as well as powerful emotional pressures, and they occur in …

Adoption With Contact Law Awaits Governor's Signature, Elizabeth Samuels

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No abstract provided.

Legal Images Of Fatherhood: Welfare Reform, Child Support Enforcement, And Fatherless Children, Jane C. Murphy

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This Article analyzes the issue of paternity disestablishment, an issue courts and legislatures have been struggling with over the last several years. For a variety of reasons explored in this Article, an increasing number of fathers have filed requests to set aside paternity orders seeking to be relieved of the legal obligations of fatherhood. As a result families have been destabilized and children are becoming fatherless. The implications for the future of the family are profound. Although some scholars have examined this phenomenon, none have addressed the link between paternity disestablishment and welfare reform.

This Article explores the law's evolving …

Delinquency Jurisdiction In A Unified Family Court: Balancing Intervention, Prevention, And Adjudication, Gloria Danziger

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This article will examine the demographics of the current juvenile delinquency caseloads and will argue that, despite trends toward greater punitive measures-including placement of juveniles in adult courts for certain offenses, the concept of a therapeutic "family-centered court," which inspired Jane Addams and her colleagues, remains the most promising approach to delinquency, articulated most notably by the proponents of the unified family court concept. The article will consider and address objections and concerns raised with respect to this approach, looking at ways in which several states have incorporated juvenile delinquency into a family-centered unified family court.

Ub Viewpoint – Creation Of A Caring Justice System, Barbara A. Babb

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No abstract provided.

The Strange History Of Adult Adoptee Access To Original Birth Records, Elizabeth Samuels

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In the late 1940s and early 1950s, contemporary accounts reported that most states had sealed adoption court records completely but, typically, had sealed original birth certificates from all persons except adult adoptees. Through the 1950s influential experts recommended that original birth certificates remain available to adult adoptees, while birth and court records otherwise be closed to all persons except upon court order. In 1960 the laws in some 40 percent of the states still permitted adult adoptees to inspect them, but between 1960 and 1990 all but a handful of the rest of the states closed the birth records to …

Collecting Child Support: A History Of Federal And State Initiatives, Jane C. Murphy, Naomi R. Cahn

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In this article we sketch an overview of the increasing federal involvement in the child-support area. Because the federal role has grown so dramatically over the past 25 years, family law practitioners need to understand the different federal programs and requirements that affect state management of child-support programs. While for many low-income parents state agencies handle child-support establishment and collection, the federalization of child support has practical implications when it comes to both establishing and enforcing child support. For example, as the time limits of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act begin to have their effects, child support …

When Daddy Wants Out: The Issue Of Paternity, Jane C. Murphy, Cheri Wyron Levin

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Perhaps you've seen the signs along a number of major highways in Maryland. A pregnant Mona Lisa advertising a DNA testing company with the caption "Who's the Daddy?" With the rise in the number of children born out of wedlock in Maryland in the last several decades, paternity testing is becoming routine and family law practitioners are handling more cases in which the father or mother or both are trying to change who is named as the legal father in a paternity or divorce judgment. The law governing such cases has changed substantially since 1995. This article will guide the …

Rules, Responsibility And Commitment To Children: The New Language Of Morality In Family Law, Jane C. Murphy

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Part One of this Article explores the meaning of morality by briefly reviewing a variety of attempts to explore the meaning of moral conduct. This Section draws on a variety of contemporary moral philosophers who have built on the classical tradition to develop a broader definition of moral behavior. This discussion provides a context for the current debate about the meaning of morality in family law and moral discourse in the no-fault era. Part One also reviews the historical debate about how law should strike a balance between promoting communitarian values and respecting autonomy and individual rights. The Article argues …

Eroding The Myth Of Discretionary Justice In Family Law: The Child Support Experiment, Jane C. Murphy

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Reliance on judicial discretion to resolve disputes is one of the most fundamental characteristics of the American legal system. Nowhere have judges exercised more unfettered discretion than in family law. Judicial discretion in this area, however, is not without its critics. In this Article Professor Jane Murphy recommends limiting the use of judicial discretion in family law matters. Professor Murphy argues that the lack of predictability which flows from discretionary decisions undermines our confidence in the equity of decisions and encourages protracted litigation.

Professor Murphy reviews the developing consensus that fixed rules are necessary to guide judges' discretion in divorce …