Law Commons^™

Tackling Vulnerabilities Through Corporate Duties, Jingchen Zhao

Catholic University Law Review

In this article, and drawing on the work of Fineman and others, we use a vulnerability lens as a device to emphasize the protection that could be offered to vulnerable parties in corporations through directors’ duties. By situating corporations in the vulnerability paradigm, we will discuss the limitations of formal equality and clarify the role played by corporate law. The increasingly blurred distinction between private law and public law will be discussed to rationalize the protection of the vulnerable through collective responsibility. Vulnerability theory mediates conflicts between calls for “regulatory state policies” and “individual responsibility” to supervise and monitor corporate …

It Is Time For Family Courts To Be More Aware Of Parental Mental Illness And Substance Abuse, Elaina Larson

Child and Family Law Journal

Since the COVID-19 pandemic and previous years, the mental health and substance abuse crises in Florida are growing at an unprecedented rate.¹ With substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as a substantial roadblock, the Florida courts are reluctant to adequately address the mental health and substance abuse needs of individuals.² This issue is especially difficult in cases involving the termination of parental rights, leaving children in damaging environments with unfit parents suffering from severe mental illness and substance abuse.³ To prevent children from growing up under negative conditions and developing mental health problems as well, …

Reflections On “Personal Responsibility” After Covid And Dobbs: Doubling Down On Privacy, Susan Frelich Appleton, Laura A. Rosenbury

Scholarship@WashULaw

This essay uses lenses of gender, race, marriage, and work to trace understandings of “personal responsibility” in laws, policies, and conversations about public support in the United States over three time periods: (I) the pre-COVID era, from the beginning of the American “welfare state” through the start of the Trump administration; (II) the pandemic years; and (III) the present post-pandemic period. We sought to explore the possibility that COVID and the assistance programs it inspired might have reshaped the notion of personal responsibility and unsettled assumptions about privacy and dependency. In fact, a mixed picture emerges. On the one hand, …

Promoting Resilience For Children And Families With Adverse Childhood Experiences, Laken Albrink

Law Faculty Popular Media

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Impact Of Judicial And Environmental Factors On Increasing Juvenile Court Dependency Cases, Marcea O'Brien

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe number of families being referred to the Department of Children and Family Services following allegations of neglect, or the inability to care for a child in the state of Georgia has been increasing. Many children removed from their parents’ custody are placed in foster care. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the impact of the socioeconomic factors facing these parents and the court processes and procedures on the increased number of foster care cases. Data were collected from participant interviews with attorneys, judges, and a clerk who work in the juvenile court system in two …

Termination Of Parental Rights As A Private Remedy: Rationales, Realities, And Remedies, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

Terminating a parent’s rights—a drastic measure—is commonly associated with public child welfare proceedings, where a state or county child protective services agency has removed a child from their home based on findings of abuse or neglect. In fact, state laws across the country also permit private individuals to petition a court to terminate another person’s parental rights. While private termination actions are not uncommon, there has been scant scholarly examination of these matters, their underlying purposes, and their role in contemporary family law. Termination of parental rights orders in any context interfere with parents’ fundamental constitutional rights, but parents in …

California's Child Abuse Dependency Hearsay Exception In In Re I.C., Rachel Monas

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vulnerability And Social Justice, Martha Albertson Fineman

Faculty Articles

This Article briefly considers the origins of the term social justice and its evolution beside our understandings of human rights and liberalism, which are two other significant justice categories. After this reflection on the contemporary meaning of social justice, I suggest that vulnerability theory, which seeks to replace the rational man of liberal legal thought with the vulnerable subject, should be used to define the contours of the term. Recognition of fundamental, universal, and perpetual human vulnerability reveals the fallacies inherent in the ideals of autonomy, independence, and individual responsibility that have supplanted an appreciation of the social. I suggest …

Keeping It In The Family: Minor Guardianship As Private Child Protection, Deirdre Smith

Faculty Publications

Due to the opioid use epidemic and an overwhelmed public child protection system, minor guardianship is an increasingly important tool for relative caregivers seeking to obtain legal authority regarding the children who come into their care because of a parent’s crisis. Yet minor guardianship originated in colonial law for an entirely different purpose: to protect legal orphans who had inherited property. Today’s guardianship laws are still based on this “orphan model” which does not fit today’s reality. This Article is the first to analyze how these outdated guardianship laws are being used as a form of “private child protection” and …

The New Law Of The Child, Anne C. Dailey, Laura A. Rosenbury

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article sets forth a new paradigm for describing, understanding, and shaping children’s relationship to law. The existing legal regime, which we term the “authorities framework,” focuses too narrowly on state and parental control over children, reducing children’s interests to those of dependency and the attainment of autonomy. In place of this limited focus, we envision a “new law of the child” that promotes a broader range of children’s present and future interests, including children’s interests in parental relationships and nonparental relationships with children and other adults; exposure to new ideas; expressions of identity; personal integrity and privacy; and participation …

Formative Projects, Formative Influences: Of Martha Albertson Fineman And Feminist, Liberal, And Vulnerable Subjects, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This essay, contributed to a symposium on the work of Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, argues that Fineman is a truly generative and transformative scholar, spurring people to think in new ways about key terms like “dependency,” “autonomy,” and “vulnerability” and about basic institutions such as the family and the state. It also recounts Fineman’s role in creating spaces for the generation of scholarship by others. The essay traces critical shifts in Fineman’s scholarly concerns, such as from a theory of dependency to vulnerability theory and from a gender lens to a skepticism about a focus on identities and discrimination. In …

Federal Visions Of Private Family Support, Laura A. Rosenbury

Laura A. Rosenbury

This Article offers a new perspective on the relationship between family and federalism by analyzing why the government — whether state or federal — recognizes family at all. The Article examines the current balance between state and federal authority over family by reviewing the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Astrue v. Capato, upholding the Social Security Administration’s deference to states’ intestacy laws when distributing benefits to posthumously conceived children, and United States v. Windsor, in which the Court struck down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Although each decision affirmed the states’ primary role in defining family …

Child Welfare Mediation In Georgia, Shauna Carmichael

Shauna Carmichael

Federal Visions Of Private Family Support, Laura A. Rosenbury

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article offers a new perspective on the relationship between family and federalism by analyzing why the government — whether state or federal — recognizes family at all. The Article examines the current balance between state and federal authority over family by reviewing the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Astrue v. Capato, upholding the Social Security Administration’s deference to states’ intestacy laws when distributing benefits to posthumously conceived children, and United States v. Windsor, in which the Court struck down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Although each decision affirmed the states’ primary role in defining family …

The Child Client: Representing Children In Child Protective Proceedings, Merril Sobie

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Mary Ann Glendon: Abortion, Divorce, Dependency, And Rights Talk In Western Law, Margaret Brinig, Linda Mcclain

Margaret F Brinig

This essay revisits Mary Ann Glendon’s comparative law study, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law and her subsequent book, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. Glendon’s comparative study actually included a third topic: “forms of dependency which are connected with pregnancy, marriage, and child raising.” The topic of dependency has obvious relevance to consideration of intergenerational obligations and the interplay between family responsibility and societal responsibility for addressing dependency needs. A central claim Glendon made in both books is that the U.S. legal tradition is “libertarian,” views individuals as “lone rights bearers,” and exalts the “right to be …

The Ethics Of Effective Advocacy For Children In Abuse And Neglect Proceedings, Suparna Malempati

Suparna Malempati

This article addresses ethical dilemmas lawyers face when representing children in abuse and neglect proceedings in juvenile court. Children in such cases need traditional advocacy in order to protect their legal rights and effectuate just outcomes. Lawyers who represent children have an ethical obligation to perform this function as advocates for their clients and not merely as guardians ad litem who make paternalistic recommendations about the best interests of children. The requirement that lawyers disregard their role as advocates for the role of guardians ad litem circumvents the ethical rules that govern lawyers and fails to adequately and effectively safeguard …

"What Did You Say?": Semantic Polysemy In California Juvenile Dependency Dispute Resolution, Kelly X. Ranasinghe

Kelly X Ranasinghe

Non-adversarial resolution of dependency cases is a statutorily mandated practice in California. Practitioners in California Juvenile Dependency courts attempt to settle cases without litigation, relying instead on negotiation between the various parties using informal discourse. This discourse utilizes polysemous dependency terms affecting the contextual understanding of statements by creating underlying ambiguity. The ambiguity of these terms creates communicative interference by engendering misunderstanding, lack of specificity and other communication problems. By recognizing polysemous qualities of core terms used in dependency discourse, practitioners can communicate more effectively and efficiently when resolving cases.

Lgbt Families, Tax Nothings, Anthony C. Infanti

Articles

The federal tax laws have never been friendly territory for LGBT families. Before the enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal tax laws turned a blind eye to the existence of LGBT families by tacitly embracing state law discrimination against same-sex couples. When it enacted DOMA in 1996, Congress ensured that it would be able to continue to turn a blind eye to LGBT families even if one or more states were to legally recognize families headed by same-sex couples. In a real sense, LGBT families have been, and continue to be, tax outlaws.

This overt …

The Hyperregulatory State: Women, Race, Poverty And Support, Wendy A. Bach

Scholarly Works

Vulnerability and dependency theory offers a rich and promising vision for those who seek to conceptualize and build a more responsive state. In theorizing a road to a supportive state, however, what would it mean to take up the challenge of intersectionality? What would it mean to center the analysis around key aspects of the relationship between legal institutions and the poor, disproportionately women and families of color who have no choice but to avail themselves of what remains of a shredded social safety net? The Hyperregulatory State argues that, for women who have no choice but to avail themselves …

Beyond Paternalism: The Role Of Counsel For Children In Abuse And Neglect Proceedings, Suparna Malempati

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Across the nation, lawyers routinely represent children who enter the juvenile court system. Juvenile court systems typically handle two types of cases: delinquency and dependency. Delinquency refers to those cases where children are accused of wrongdoing, which generally means a criminal offense. Dependency cases involve situations where the child is alleged to be mistreated, i.e. abused or neglected, by parents or guardians.

Lawyers are involved in both types of proceedings most traditionally as representatives of the state. Lawyers represent the state and bring forth charges of criminal conduct against the child in delinquency proceedings. Lawyers represent the state and …

The Goals Of Marriage And Divorce In Missouri: The State’S Interest In Regulating Marriage, Privatizing Dependency, And Allowing Same-Sex Divorce, Sarah Bollasina Fandrey

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Mary Ann Glendon: Abortion, Divorce, Dependency, And Rights Talk In Western Law, Linda C. Mcclain, Margaret F. Brining

Faculty Scholarship

This essay revisits Mary Ann Glendon’s comparative law study, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law and her subsequent book, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. Glendon’s comparative study actually included a third topic: “forms of dependency which are connected with pregnancy, marriage, and child raising.” The topic of dependency has obvious relevance to consideration of intergenerational obligations and the interplay between family responsibility and societal responsibility for addressing dependency needs.

A central claim Glendon made in both books is that the U.S. legal tradition is “libertarian,” views individuals as “lone rights bearers,” and exalts the “right to be let …

Revisiting Mary Ann Glendon: Abortion, Divorce, Dependency, And Rights Talk In Western Law, Margaret F. Brinig, Linda C. Mcclain

Journal Articles

This essay revisits Mary Ann Glendon’s comparative law study, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law and her subsequent book, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. Glendon’s comparative study actually included a third topic: “forms of dependency which are connected with pregnancy, marriage, and child raising.” The topic of dependency has obvious relevance to consideration of intergenerational obligations and the interplay between family responsibility and societal responsibility for addressing dependency needs. A central claim Glendon made in both books is that the U.S. legal tradition is “libertarian,” views individuals as “lone rights bearers,” and exalts the “right to be …

Washington State Dependency Best Practices Report, Justice Bobbe J. Bridge, Michelle Ressa, Jacob D'Annunzio, Hathaway Burden, Dr. Sheri L. Hill, Lisa Kelly, Rose Wentz

Books

The judge's work in child abuse and neglect cases is among the most challenging of any judicial proceeding. The complexities are substantial. Such cases depend upon the exercise of discretion and good judgment together with the application of sound legal principles. The judge must call upon his or her most cherished skills—objectivity, wisdom, patience, and foresight—in circumstances of acute stress. Lives are literally at stake—the lives of the most vulnerable children and youth in our communities and the lives of families wracked by generations of poverty and despair. Families, children, and youth who have experienced intense trauma; who may be …

The Rebirth Of Dependence: Offering An Alternative Understanding Of Financial Crisis, Ciara Hackett

Ciara Hackett

Dependency theory situated within the broader field of development studies draws on Marxist inspired theories of development and tends to oppose the neo-liberalism interpretation of the markets that is prevalent today. In considering the global system as a mixture of dependent relationships, it goes beyond inter-dependence, suggesting that such relationships are unequal.

The financial crisis of 2007 – 2010 has provided academics and commentators with a unique environment to debate, discuss and analyse our current understanding of the global financial system, the relationships within and the role of entities such as the multi-national corporation (MNC). This article takes dependency theory …

From The Margins To Pacesetting: The Place Of The Elderly In U.S. Legal History From A Historian's Perspective, W. Andrew Achenbaum

Marquette Elder's Advisor

Prior to the Civil War, the small percentage of Americans who were elderly lived on the margins of society. Uncared-for poor elderly persons could be placed in poor-houses. Achenbaum discusses the evolution, through veteran's benefits, Social Security, corporate and union pension plans, and Medicare to a society where the care and well-being of the elderly are among the most important legal issues of the day.

Renegotiating The Social Contract, Jennifer S. Hendricks

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews Maxine Eichner's new book, "The Supportive State: Families, Government, and America's Political Ideals." It highlights Eichner's important theoretical contributions to both liberal political theory and feminist theory, applauding her success in reforming liberalism to account for dependency, vulnerability, and families. The essay then considers some implications of Eichner's proposals and their likely reception among feminists. It concludes that "The Supportive State" is a sound and inspiring response to recent calls that feminist theory move from being strictly a school of criticism to developing a theory of governance.

Renegotiating The Social Contract, Jennifer S. Hendricks

Jennifer S. Hendricks

This essay reviews Maxine Eichner's new book, "The Supportive State: Families, Government, and America's Political Ideals." It highlights Eichner's important theoretical contributions to both liberal political theory and feminist theory, applauding her success in reforming liberalism to account for dependency, vulnerability, and families. The essay then considers some implications of Eichner's proposals and their likely reception among feminists. It concludes that "The Supportive State" is a sound and inspiring response to recent calls that feminist theory move from being strictly a school of criticism to developing a theory of governance.

Meaningful Legal Representation For Children And Youth In Washington's Child Welfare System: Standards Of Practice, Voluntary Training, And Caseload Limits In Response To Hb 2735, Lisa Kelly

Books

Introduction, pages 1-2

Executive Summary, pages 3-4

Child Recommendation Practice Standards, pages 5-14

Voluntary Training Recommendations, page 15

Supporting Documentation

• Appendix A, HB 2735, Tab A
• Appendix B, Children's Representation Sub-Workgroup Membership List, Tab B
• Appendix C, American Bar Association Standards of Practice for Lawyers Who Represent Children in Abuse and Neglect Cases, Tab C