Law Commons^™

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.

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 …

The Public Choice Of Elder Abuse Law, Margaret F. Brinig, Gerald Jogerst, Jeanette Daly, Gretchen Schmuch, Jeffrey Dawson

Margaret F Brinig

This interdisciplinary study finds that the way laws are written and treated by state regulators measurably affects bureaucratic performance: the care taken by legislatures and state agencies in developing domestic elder abuse law affects how lower-level bureaucrats investigate and report abuse. Perhaps more interesting, however, are two robust findings about state law making. Both legislator characteristics (here, being middle-aged or slightly older) and lobbying by seemingly the most important group (here, the American Association of Retired Persons [AARP]) sometimes have an unexpected effect. We surmise that these legislators and lobbyists find other issues both more politically attractive and more pressing …

In Search Of Prince Charming, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

This response begins by addressing the different perspectives as presented by the panel “Sex, Lies and Exploitation.” One of the panelists, professor Plasencia, presented a powerful and graphic documentation of digital communication’s influence on the sex industry. Some of the images involved explicitly portrayed the sex trade while in others, it was portrayed more subtly as an arranged or mail-order marriage. The author's response to professor Plasencia is mixed. On the one hand, it is rather easy these days for one to mistakenly encounter a sexually explicit website. On the other hand, however, since little information exists on how widespread …

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.

Engagement Rings Are Barbaric, Margaret Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

Margaret Brinig was quoted in the Salon magazine article Engagement rings are barbaric

By Shannon Rupp

"The real reason for engagement rings wasn’t lost on people of that era, however, as legal scholar Margaret Brinig noted when she researched the history of breach of promise laws. With the abolition of those laws in the 1930s came an increase in the sales of engagement rings to the masses."

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 …

Making Way For A New Standard: Women Redefine The "Ideal Professor", Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

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.

The Bankruptcy Puzzle, Margaret F. Brinig, F. H. Buckley

Margaret F Brinig

This article offers new evidence on the determinants of U.S. consumer bankruptcy filing rates, which tripled from 1984 to 1991. The run-up in filing rates does not appear to be a consequence of legal changes since the increase coincided with Bankruptcy Code amendments designed to reduce filing rates by rejecting opportunistic petitions. The run-up also coincided with a major economic boom and crested with the 1991 recession. However, much of the variation in district filing rates is attributable to differences in social variables, and we suggest that changes in social norms might account for the increased bankruptcy filings. This article …

Due Process--Rights Of Confrontation & Cross Examination Accorded To Students At Expulsion Hearings, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

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

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

The Mistake Of Fact Defense And The Reasonableness Requirement, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

This article examines specifically the mistake of fact defense and its disparate treatment under these two systems of justice. The British approach is to retain a subjective element in the mistake of fact defense, while American courts impose an objective "reasonableness" requirement. The substantive criminal law approach, utilizing the concept of mens rea, will be discussed first, and will be followed by a treatment of recent American constitutional developments in the area of burden of proof standards in their criminal context. Finally, two factually similar rape cases, one British and one American, will be analyzed to show the present contrasting …

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.

Reliance Interest In Marriage And Divorce, Margaret F. Brinig, June Carbone

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

"Money Can't Buy Me Love": A Contrast Between Damages In Family Law And Contract, Margaret F. Brinig

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.

How Much Does Legal Status Matter? Adoptions By Kin Caregivers, Margaret F. Brinig, Steven L. Nock

Margaret F Brinig

No abstract provided.